几乎所有的大学都会要求申请人提交推荐信（Recommendation Letter），评审委员根据推荐者的文字描述，可以了解申请人的背景状况。它可以说明各种成绩数字以外的其他情况，补充过于计量化、公式化审核的一种评估方式。在决定出国申请是否成功的诸多要素中，有力的推荐信是录取的重要条件之一，其份量仅次于于本科成绩单和标准化考试（GRE、GMAT、TOEFL）成绩。
同学们所申请的大学一般要求三封推荐信。推荐人的身份可以是曾经教你的教授，或者现（曾）职工作单位主管，自己视学校要求和自己的需要组合。例如，如果你毕业十年，你的推荐信可应有二封由工作主管来写为宜，而毕业一两年顶多一封即足够。
推荐人的职务并不一定愈高愈有利，相反地，认识你的时间较长，虽然职位不高，但是由于对你有着清楚地了解，所以其撰写的内容往往能够适当地表达你的个性（Personality）。这才是上乘的推荐。
接下来，我们将通过实例来讨论推荐信包含的主要内容，基本结构，以及通常可以套用的模式。
例如：
To whom it may concern:
I take great pleasure in recommending Miss××， a promising girl as a worthy candidate for admission and financial aids to your prodigious university. As her undergraduate advisor, I had known her for nearly four years. In this letter I would like to share with you my perspectives on this exceptional young lady.
Miss×× strikes a balance in academic and extracurricular activities, which is rarely seen in university students. From an education perspective, I think Miss×× is the type of student who can go far and broad as an integrated human being to fulfill academic mission and social responsibility.
When I taught her ××（课程）, unlike many other students loafing time in heavy complaints about the boring stuff, she was self-disciplined with the fundamentals and made step-by-step progress. She was also self-navigated. In addition to class assignments, she proactively broadened herself asking for extra reading list from me. Naturally, she got good scores of 91 and 92 points respectively. In the meantime, she has obtained a macroview on the development of the schools of ×× and the trend of thought, which will establish solid basis for her future research in ××field.
Besides her academic activities, I also attracted by her social activities and capabilities. Miss×× has a strong ability in organizing, leading and controlling extracurricular activities. In the past three years she has organized many activities successfully. In particular, she took part in ××（association）. Through a series of activities, many people were impressed by her leadership, humor and eloquence. She was elected as a student representative to take the speech in＃＃ delivered by ×× President and sponsored “＃＃”, a large-scaled sale for charity in cooperation with ××(公司名称) to which she invited many ambassadors or cultural chancellors and raised an assistance fund. Eventually, she received a highest honorary school diploma signed personally by the president of ××(大学名称) for her performance in such activities.
All the observation on Shanshan in closeness leads to the conclusion that she is both a candidate qualified for your graduate program towards a higher degree and a citizen that will impact the communities in neighborhood with knowledge and enthusiasm. If you need more information concerning her, please contact me freely.