Reference Questions

Mallorie Fonseca

Hello from EIU,

We were wondering how others have asked for references on applications. We are planning to change the process for next year's applications and wondered what others have found as the pros and cons of having reference questions in the general application vs. opportunity specific questions.

Gail Sherron

Hi Mallorie,

We do not attached reference questions to the general application.

Gail Sherron

University of Kansas

Jennifer Matte

Hi Mallorie,

We have our reference section within our General Application, but set as not required (we do include text to note that it is very important to complete the section, though). For us, if we didn't map it into the General Application, majority of our opportunities wouldn't be able to auto match, which wasn't our goal.


Hope this helps!

Jennifer Matte

Georgian College

Deirdre Coburn

We have reference letters in our conditional Graduate application. Most large-valued graduate applications require research proposals, transcripts, CVs and reference letters so this is mandatory for this conditional application. Any graduate award that does not require these pieces are pulled off the General Application.

Pro:

• for academic reference letters use a reference questionnaire (one for UG and one for Graduate) and it provides consistent information and format for reviewers
• for volunteer/leadership reference letters we made it so that students can upload this pdf on their own. We did this because these are more often written by community people outside of the institution and this is much easier and straight forward.
• the reviewers get an automatic reminder from the system.
• students can see if the reference is done or not and can resend invitations themselves
• students can also change their reference if needed and mange that through the system.

Cons (more system issues)

• we use this system for undergraduate and graduate awards, and you only have one invitation communications sent to references, so it is a generic email. This means you can’t have deadlines for specific awards in the invitation.
• The reference invitation has a link to the log in page but the default is the Applicants tab and as consequence, there are always a handful of people who blindly sign in and are brought to the application itself and not the reference/reviewer pages. You then have to contact BBAM IT to get that fixed.

Hope this helps,

Deirdre

University of Lethbridge

Mallorie Fonseca

Thank you, Gail, may I ask how you manage the reference questions from year to year,? We have so many opportunities with reference questions and I am not sure how to easily replace the questions every year with cycle management. Do you have any tips on how you manage that piece?

Elizabeth Starbuck

We have the reference question in the general application as one reference is required for all applicants. We also use a reference question in some opportunities where the scholarship requires a specific reference such as those from a faculty member or employer. This has worked pretty well for us. However, it has been suggested that we remove the reference letter requirement completely in order to make it more equitable for students. I'm wondering if anyone else has done this and what your experience has been.

Jaime Fortier

I agree with everything Diedre said! Here is the wording on our reference question if that helps.

REQUIRED PRIOR TO SUBMITTING

Enter the name and email address of a college or high school instructor, past or present employer, coach, counselor, clergy, someone you have done volunteer work for or other reference to complete a form that will be emailed. REFERENCES WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED FROM FAMILY, FRIENDS, CLASSMATES OR CO-WORKERS. (NOTE: For the November 1 application deadline, one reference must be from a current program related/specific instructor in your program. A program related/specific are courses unique to your program and are not standard General Education courses.)

(STRONGLY RECOMMENDED) Enter the name and email address of another college or high school instructor, past or present employer, coach, counselor, clergy, someone you have done volunteer work for or other reference to complete a form that will be emailed. REFERENCES WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED FROM FAMILY, FRIENDS, CLASSMATES OR CO-WORKERS.