REFERENCE LETTER FOR POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS 

You have been carefully selected by one of your students to help them achieve one of their dreams - studying at a university in the UK!

In order to help them achieve their dreams, please give an assessment in English of the suitability of the applicant for the UK higher education courses that they have applied to. If you do not know what they are applying for, that is not a problem, and a general reference letter is perfectly fine.

Where possible, include the following points in your letter:

• Existing achievement and student potential (including predicted results or performance)
• Motivation and commitment towards the chosen course or subject
• Any relevant skills or achievement, whether certified or not
• Powers of analysis and independent thought
• Relevant curriculum enrichment or other activities
• Where relevant, their suitability for training for a particular profession, for example, medicine
• Any factors which may have affected, or will affect in the future, their performance (for example personal circumstances)
• Information about any special needs and other requirements. The reference should not give information about an applicant’s health or disability without their agreement

Here is an example of how to start write the reference letter:

‘’I am very pleased to be able to write to you about Maria, a young woman with tremendous potential and promise, currently in her second year of senior studies at XYZ school. Maria has been a student of my Physics class for the past two years.  As such, I have had many opportunities to interact with her, to know her as a person and to observe her at work and in her interaction with her peers.’’  
 

THE LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION CAN BE CONSTRUCTED IN THE FOLLOWING WAY:  

• Paragraph 1 – introduction 
• Paragraph 2 –write about the student as a person and student
• Paragraph 3 –qualities and achievement the student has towards the course
• Paragraph 4 – work experience, placements and volunteer work
• Paragraph 5 – summary 
   

The reference letter needs to be signed by the referee and written on your institution's official letter headed paper (logo, contact details etc). It needs to be in PDF format or something we can easily convert into a PDF.

When you write a reference for an applicant, please remember that due to data protection regulations the applicant can ask for a copy of the reference letter and any other personal information that Across the Pond have about them.

Please send the reference letter directly to the student so they can add it to our online application form.

If you don't want to send your letter directly to the student, you can submit it through the form on this page. We will confirm receipt to both yourself and the student in order to let you know that the advisor has successfully received the reference letter.

If you have questions in regards to this, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Thank you so much!