Reference Letter for a Student: Example, Template, Rules

UK undergraduate: the UCAS reference is a form, not a letter

From the 2024 entry cycle UCAS replaced the free-form reference with a structured one. A referee completes three sections rather than writing prose, and which sections you actually fill in depends on your route:

1. Context. Writing through a school, college or UCAS registered centre, this is a general statement about the centre: intake, progression rates, the qualifications you offer and any restrictions on option choices, non-UK qualification profiles where relevant, and anything that hit the whole cohort, such as staff changes, building closures, or other sustained disruption. It is usually a standard statement reused for every applicant rather than written afresh. Writing for an independent applicant, someone home-educated, mature, or out of education, section 1 is different and mandatory: an overview of your relationship with the applicant, how you know them and for how long.
2. Circumstances affecting this applicant. The extenuating circumstances section, covered below.
3. Information about the applicant relevant to the courses applied for. This is the one you actually write.

The whole reference is capped at 4,000 characters, and that count includes spaces, line breaks and the section headings themselves, so UCAS advises keeping your typed text under 3,800. Writing for an independent applicant, UCAS gives the cap as 3,800 and you have to finish in one session because drafts are not saved. There is no line limit: any guidance telling you about a 47-line cap is describing the old free-form reference.

The practical consequence: a traditional recommendation letter written for UCAS is the wrong document. Write to the three questions and spend your character budget on section three. And do not assume the reference is confidential. UCAS tells referees that under the Data Protection Act 2018 the applicant can ask for a copy of the reference and of any other personal information UCAS holds about them, so write nothing you would not be willing to have the student read.

One exception worth knowing: UCAS Conservatoires is also UK undergraduate study but works differently. There is no structured form; the conservatoire contacts the referee directly only if it wants more information.

The extenuating circumstances section

This one is misused in both directions. Left blank when it matters, an admissions tutor reads a dip in grades as the student's ceiling rather than as the term their parent was ill. Filled with everything, it dilutes the case and can read as excuse-making. Most applicants will not need it at all, UCAS supplies a "no information to enter" tick box, and nobody is disadvantaged by leaving it empty.

Use it when something measurably affected this student's work: a long illness, a bereavement, caring responsibilities, adverse family circumstances, or a late diagnosis of a specific learning difficulty. Anything that hit the whole cohort, such as a school closure or a disrupted exam series, belongs in section 1 instead; UCAS says so directly. Say what happened in a line, say which period and which grades it touched, and say what the student did in response. "Absent for seven weeks in the spring term following surgery; the drop from A to C in the January mocks belongs to that period; she caught up over the summer and returned to A grades by June" is worth more than a paragraph of sympathy.

Two rules attach to this section specifically. UCAS requires the applicant's consent for everything you put in it, not only for health or family detail, so agree the wording with them first. And if you work in a school or college you must state whether the exam board or awarding organisation has already taken those circumstances into account.

US college: the FERPA waiver

The Common App's FERPA release authorization asks two things. First, and compulsorily, permission for the high school to release the records colleges request. Second, whether the student waives the right to review the recommendations and the other school forms that go with them. The waiver applies to every college on the application.

Advise the student to waive it. Common App's own guidance is that waiving "helps reassure colleges that the letters are candid and truthful", and that some recommenders will write only for students who have waived, so it is worth asking each teacher what their policy is. Declining to waive can also read as though the applicant does not trust their own recommender.

Four things about the waiver that the advice columns leave out. A college cannot require it: under the federal regulation a waiver is valid only if the institution does not make it a condition of admission or of any service or benefit, and it must be in writing and signed by the student, whatever their age, so a parent signature is not the one that counts. An individual teacher may still decline to write without one. The selection can be changed up to the moment the first application or the first recommendation is submitted, whichever happens first, and not after. And waiving does not hand the college a blank cheque: even then, the institution must give the student, on request, the names of everyone who wrote a letter, and may use those letters only for the purpose they were written for. What the student gives up is the right, once enrolled, to read letters written to support their admission.

For the referee, the same choice is a reason to be specific. A letter written in the knowledge that the student will not read it is expected to be honest, and a bland one is read as a quiet reservation.

Which document for which destination

• UK undergraduate. The UCAS structured reference above. Not a letter.
• US college. A letter through the application platform, with the waiver decided first. Check the destination before you write: the University of California, the largest US public system, does not use recommendation letters for first-year admission and tells counsellors not to send them unless a campus asks.
• Scholarship. A letter, and it should argue the published criteria one by one. If the award is for leadership and financial need, write about leadership and need, not general excellence.
• Internship or a first job. A short letter, skills first: what the student can already do, how they handle instruction and deadlines, and evidence of reliability.
• Graduate school. A letter uploaded through a portal, comparing the student to peers you have taught and speaking to research capacity rather than classroom behaviour. It is usually invisible to the applicant, but that comes from the waiver they signed rather than from the portal: an applicant who does not waive keeps the right to inspect the letters once enrolled.

What to include in the letter

• Your position and the connection. What you teach, how long you have taught them, and in what setting.
• Academic evidence. A specific piece of work with the result: a project, a grade trajectory, a question they would not let go of.
• How they work. Independence, response to feedback, behaviour in a group, what happens when they are stuck.
• Fit for the destination. Tie two of those points directly to the course, award, or role.
• A clear recommendation and your contact details.

One page. Where the student has a thin record, one detailed incident beats four vague sentences.

A scholarship reference example

A US letter, in US register throughout.

The template

Fill the brackets, and name the course or the programme the student is applying to, since a reference written for nowhere in particular reads like one. The .docx carries this form, the scholarship letter, and the UCAS notes together.

If you are the student asking

• Ask early and in person where you can, and ask whether they can write a strong reference rather than only a reference.
• Send a brief: the course, award, or role with its criteria; the deadline; your transcript or predicted grades; and two or three things you would like mentioned, including the project names and dates they may not recall.
• Say where it goes: a UCAS form, a portal upload, or an email address, and whether a signature or letterhead is needed.
• Decide the FERPA question before you submit anything on a US application, because it locks once the first application or recommendation goes in. Waiving is usually right, and you sign it yourself whatever your age.
• Follow up once before the deadline, and tell them the outcome afterwards.

Sources

• UCAS adviser guidance on undergraduate references from the 2024 entry cycle: three structured sections; a 4,000-character maximum counting spaces, line breaks and section headings, with typed text advised under 3,800; a 3,800-character cap and no saved drafts for references written for independent applicants, whose section 1 is instead a mandatory overview of the referee's relationship with the applicant; cohort-wide disruption belongs in section 1; section 2 requires the applicant's consent, carries a "no information to enter" option, and asks whether awarding organisations have already considered the circumstances; referees are warned that under the Data Protection Act 2018 applicants can request a copy. UCAS Conservatoires references are requested by the conservatoire rather than completed on a form.
• US: 34 CFR 99.12(b) and (c), the FERPA waiver, which an institution may not require as a condition of admission or benefit, must be in writing and signed by the student regardless of age, and after which the institution must still give the student the names of the writers on request and use the letters only for their intended purpose; the right to inspect confidential recommendations is lost only for letters relating to admission, employment or an honour, and only once enrolled. Common App FERPA release authorization: two questions, applies to all colleges, and cannot be changed after any recommendation or application submission. University of California counsellor guidance: do not submit letters of recommendation for first-year admission unless a campus asks.

This page is general information about writing student references, not legal or admissions advice. Check the requirements published by the institution you are writing to.