Study Abroad FAQ: How to Write a Reference Letter?

A big congrats to all of our students who have resumed classes in our partner schools across the globe. It was a smooth ride thanks to the help from the Helpdesk and the Counselling Team.

Presently, our partner schools have opened their applications portal for January and September 2021 intake and we know that students might have a hard time collating their documents. Not to worry, this blog post will be explaining the basic features and differences between an academic and a professional letter.

Foremost, a reference letter serves as a witness of character from an institution or organization to the school about the student. This letter should be written in a positive tone highlighting the student’s character traits, skill-set (hard & soft), achievements, and academic excellence.

The only difference between an academic reference letter from the professional one is who is writing the letter. In simple terms, the academic letter is written by the academic personnel from the school you graduated from; while the professional letter is from your employer.

There are four parts to writing the reference letter which is; the format of addressing, introduction, the body which is where the referee should highlight details about his/her relationship with the student, student’s qualities and the conclusion.

Please note that;

1. The format of addressing should be arranged this way; the date, the addresser’s name and designation, company/school name with address.
2. The reference letter has to have typed on a letter-head with the school’s or organization logo and official stamp imprinted on the paper.
3. The Addresser’s signature and contact details should be provided at the bottom of the letter.
4. It is best to not mention the names of the school you are applying to nor the course you are applying to. If not this way, that will mean you will have to send five different reference letters from the same individual to five different schools.

One way to handle this is to mention that the letter is addressed to; WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

For further information about collating the right documents for your applications to schools in the UK, USA, Ireland, Canada, Australia, Netherlands, Cyprus or Germany, please fill this contact form and we will have the Helpdesk Unit reach out to you.