What to do if you want me to write a letter for you?

Professor A.J. de Jong, Columbia university, Department of Mathematics.

If you need a letter on short notice, you should strongly consider asking someone else (Ravi Vakil).

Links

• Ravi's Recommendations
• Keith Conrad's Recommendations
• Megumi Harada's Recommendations
• Rob Pollack's Recommendations
• Tom Roby's Recommendations

Ask me

The first thing you do is ask me. If you do this by email, please make sure you tell me what the recommendations will be for and the deadline(s).

Talk to me about your research

Presumably you want me to write about your research. The best thing to do would be to meet up with me and describe your research. Try to explain an argument or a result you are particularly happy with. If we cannot meet, try to point me to such an argument or result in one of your papers.

Send me everything you've got

This is very important to me and often goes awry or applicants seem to forget. I want to know that I have all the information relevant to your case. Here is a list of things I want you to send me by email and I want you to keep updating this as time goes by and we get closer to the deadline:

1. cv I expect the cv to list the publication status of your preprints/papers -- if not, then please include this separately
2. all your work: really anything you are willing to send me; do not omit anything even things you think I know about. It is OK to send an email with links to (current) material on the internet. If you are writing a paper, but it is not done, just send me the incomplete version. If you do not want to send me the unfinished document, then still list the project in your email with a short description of contents, status, and coauthors.
3. who are the other letter writers
4. list the jobs/schools you are applying to and the deadlines; if there are many applications where we can use the same letter, just list the first deadline. Please give me some information about the program you are applying to, e.g., a link to the website with job info or conference, etc.
5. deadline(s) and how, where, and to whom to send the letters
6. transcripts if you are an udergraduate
7. research proposal if you have one
8. other material this can include interesting classes you are teaching or have taught, coding projects, online material, cool answers on mathoverflow, etc.

Once you have sent me an email with all this information once, it should be an easy matter to update this email whenever new information becomes available; if you have a good email client it should be possible to send those updates in the same email thread! Please make sure I know at each moment what the most up to date information is.

It will be your job to remind me of deadlines

Please remind me of deadlines by sending me frequent emails, with increasing frequency as the deadline gets closer. The first reminder should be sent about 14 days before the deadline.