Sample Letter of Recommendation

(The applicant, Mr. Zhang Zhigan, was admitted by University of Minnesota Ph.D.program in Biochemical Engineering and got Full Financial Aid.)

Dear Sir or Madam,

It is my honor to recommend Mr. Zhigang Zhang to your graduate program. I first got to know Mr. Zhang at the annual conference for recruiting new employees last spring. I recruited him to our department because of his quantitative perspective and critical vision, which impressed me immediately, on industrial production of Extremozymes and Oligosaccharides.

Through daily communications and discussions on our research project, I find that Mr. Zhang is very diligent and self-motivated in research work. Keeping an open and active mind, he keeps himself well informed with every break-through in bioscience and biotechnolog): Just for an example: In CAS Symposium on Glycoscience and Glycotechnology this August, he challenged speakers by pointing out their potential hurdles and offering his alternative strategies for preventing virus adhesion by chemically modified oligosaccharides.

As a newcomer to our research group, he has demonstrated a great capacity and adaptability in scientific research. His strong engineering background, especially in quantitative analysis, bioprocess design and scale-up, contributed impressively to the laboratory and industrial R&D of our two novel bioproducts: Alkaline alginate lyase and Alginate oligosaccharides.

Mr. Zhang is very good at technical writing both in Chinese and in English. He has co-authored two book chapters, papers, and applied the patent, with my colleague, Professor (name). His spoken English is also very good. He can fluently discuss our research program in English with visiting scholars from Japan, Europe and the US. To my knowledge, he didn't score in standard tests as well as his real English skills. Therefore, I don't think he will have any language problem in graduate study.

Mr. Zhang is an active member of Chinese Society for Microbiology and often volunteers his help such as delivering monthly Newsletters and preparing for the seminars. He is smart and ambitious. By acquiring acute insights from lab work and seminars, he seeks self-improvements both in personality and scholarship persistendy. With his diverse background and experiences, he does not simply take the routine job, but weaves his expertise and skills together into a framework for his lifelong career objective, R&D in Biochemical Engineering, exploring and exploiting the potential of the microbial resources in the chemical, environmental and medical areas, etc.

As Department Head, I understand and respect his genuine interests and strong commitment to further study and research in your esteemed institution. His performance in my research institute demonstrates that he has well prepared for his quest for academic achievements of the highest order. Without reservation, I give my highest recommendations for him to your Ph.D. program. I am confident that Mr. Zhang will add diversity and uniqueness to your academic community.

Sincerely yours,

Professor (name)