It is a common practise in India for teachers to ask the students to write the recommendation letter on their own. Teachers modify the letter and attest it with their signature. This surely is not the actual purpose of a recommendation letter.
This is not entirely the teacher’s fault according to me. Teachers are overwhelmed with a bunch of requests for recommendation letters. The students typically give minimal or no information about themselves. They simply go to the teacher an year or two after finishing their college and smile at the teacher asking for an excellent letter that praises them. How can the teacher help you if he/she doesn’t recollect any specific things about you? You can’t expect the teachers to keep a note of all the hundreds of students they teach every year.
The point here is NOT to copy paste recommendation letter from the internet and modifying it like most of the indian students tend to do. Those copied letters are useless as they say nothing about YOU as an individual. They speak of somebody but you. And if you go straight to your teacher and ask for a letter, you may get nothing but an abstract letter that doesn’t pinpoint to the activities that you did.
Don’t give up. Don’t copy paste. There is an awesome solution to this problem. Take a print out of the document below, fill it with necessary details and give it to your teacher. This will help your teacher/professor write an essay that exactly describes the activies that you actually did and gives precise description your character. Credit goes to Baylor university.
About the Author: Sridhar Jammalamadaka is the editor of this blog, Interview Mantra. He is a professional blogger from Pune, India. He is an experienced programmer with expertise in Java, C and Micro Controller programming. He enjoys playing cricket and piano. Through this blog, he wishes to gather a large online community of aspiring Indians - students and working professionals. You can find him on Twitter at @sriavr 