Two recommendations are required as part of your application. Recommendations should be submitted from academic and/or professional sources. Please note:
- If you are in your last year of undergraduate study at the time of applying, you are required to submit at least one academic recommendation from a faculty member at your undergraduate degree-conferring institution. The second recommendation may be academic or professional;
- If you received a bachelor’s degree within 2 years of the date of the application, you are strongly encouraged, but not required, to submit an academic recommendation;
- If you received a bachelor’s degree more than 2 years prior to the date of the application, you are not required to submit an academic recommendation.
Recommendations should be submitted by:
a) a faculty member with whom you have studied at your undergraduate degree-conferring institution who can assess your academic work, intellectual ability, and academic potential for graduate work. The recommender should have instructed you directly, academic advisors are not appropriate.
AND/OR
b) a current or former supervisor (preferred) or work associate/project leader who can attest to your professional abilities. If you manage your own business and are your own supervisor, you may select a client as your recommender. Personal references are not appropriate.
IMPORTANT NOTE: All recommendations must be submitted using a professional or academic email domain. References submitted from personal or anonymous email domains (e.g. Gmail, Yahoo, 123.com, 163.com, qq.com etc.) may result in your application being considered ineligible for admission. If you are unable to provide a professional email address for your recommender, please email us at apply [[at]] sps [[dot]] columbia [[dot]] edu (apply[at]sps[dot]columbia[dot]edu) with an explanation of why a professional email address cannot be provided.
