Getting good academic references are an integral part of your postgraduate application. Academic references allow the admissions team to get a sense of your academic abilities, contributions and motivations. It is therefore advised you pick academic referees in place of a professional ones.
Choosing who you want to submit as a reference can be tricky, and approaching potential referees can be nerve-wracking. Here follows some tips for how to pick the right referee and how you could approach them.
Selecting your academic referees
A natural first pick for an academic referee is your academic mentor/supervisor, or equivalent from your previous studies (be that your undergraduate degree or a previous master’s). An academic mentor will be someone who you will have had contact with throughout your studies and who knows about your academic achievements, your extra curricular activities, and your career aspirations. Regardless of whether you have a close relationship with your academic mentor or not, their job would have been to keep track of your academic progression. For these reasons, I chose to reach out to my undergraduate academic mentor to provide my academic reference and they were happy to do so. If you do not have two other lecturers you have a strong relationship with, I would suggest you pick your academic mentor as one of your academic referees.
Your second academic reference can be a bit more tricky. If you are coming from a UK university you might not have had a close relationship with your lecturers, as they often oversee classes with hundreds of people. However, if you did work closely with a particular lecturer then they would be a good idea to nominate. For example, during your undergraduate degree or a previous postgraduate degree you might have had to write a dissertation or produce a final project. Your supervisor on this could provide a great potential reference. You might have met with them regularly during your final year and they can attest to your research skills, your written capabilities and your ability to meet deadlines. This will all be relevant for your reference.
How to approach potential referees
Selecting your referees is the easy part, now you have to reach out to them and get them to submit the reference within the application deadline! My biggest tip when doing this is to not worry about whether they will say yes, or whether they have the time to do it. If they work in academia they will most likely have written numerous references, and they will expect these types of requests.
Make sure you reach out to your references in enough time before the application deadline. It should be one of the first things you do when you decide to apply to a programme. In your email to your potential referee you should make sure to state clearly when the deadline to apply is. When you apply to LSE the reference request will be automatic once you submit their contact information in the system. Therefore, you should make sure you have reached out to your referee before you put their name down.
In addition to providing your potential referee with the application deadline, you should also give them more information so that they can write the most suitable recommendation. In your initial email it can be helpful to remind them who you are and your relation to them. You should also write briefly about (1) why you are applying for your chosen master’s and why at LSE, (2) what you can bring to this master’s and (3) what you want to get out of the master’s. In this way, even if your reference might not know you very well, they have a good understanding of who you are as a student and they can write an appropriate recommendation.
The reference part of your application might seem quite monumental and daunting at first. However, it is quite simple. As long as you start reaching out early you will have no problem receiving glowing recommendations well before the application deadline.
