Reference Guidelines
Updated 9.27.11
ALERT ! All references are now done entirely and only online.
Paper forms/letters are no longer required or accepted.
No letter accepted for Teaching applicants -- only a form.
Letter (online) required only for Research applications.
BEWARE ! The email sent to referees from Embark may not have their URL underlined and it may have to be copied-n-pasted into your browser for you to log onto the Embark system in order to access their reference form/s and or upload your letter.
Go straight to QUICK GUIDE if you have done Fulbright references before, can navigate the tricky Embark system and need only a refresher because you basically know how to do it all correctly.
Dear Fulbright Referee,
ON behalf of Smith College and the Smith student or alumna for whom you have kindly agreed to furnish a reference (Recommendation or Foreign Language Evaluation) to support her application for a Fulbright Fellowship, we salute you and offer these guidelines.
Please take the time to read them before embarking on your reference, to save having to redo any work.
Reading these guidelines is guaranteed to save time in the long run as well as improve the chances of the applicant you are kindly assisting by providing a reference in support of her Fulbright bid.
To optimize browser interface with the Embark online system, use preferably Internet Explorer, otherwise Mozilla Firefox.
Embark's system is not compatible with Safari or any other browsers for completing your online references or entering data.
References make a marked impression on Fulbright judges and have a significant influence on selection.
We know that to compose an influential recommendation takes considerable thought, care in crafting and therefore time, or as a chaired professor once put it: “A whole morning long.”
And it is a recommendation, so if you feel you cannot be positive about the candidate and must be negative about her, or express reservations about her suitability, in order to be truthful, rather decline to write the letter because in such a stiff competition these remarks are sure to sink her application.
Candidates are instructed to ask prospective recommenders if they are willing and able to write a strong letter in their favor.
If you can't, please decline.
We ask that you contact the FPA or her Class Dean to share your reservations because we as a college sponsoring this candidate need to be fully aware of who we are endorsing to send overseas as a representative of our country.
If she performs badly in any way, this will reflect directly on Smith.
Next time that country sees a Smith finalist on the Fulbright short-list, they might decide not to take another chance with an applicant sponsored by our college.
Language Evaluations, though short and more objective or neutral, usually involve interviewing the candidate in the foreign language being evaluated.
All your efforts and contributions are truly appreciated.
Please feel free to contact Smith’s Fulbright Program Advisor with any questions after reading your guide chosen from the Contents menu below.
Thank you!
CONTENTS
PLEASE choose from the menu below the appropriate link for the type of reference you are giving.
If you are not completely certain, please do NOT continue but check with the applicant which one of the three she is asking you to do in this instance.
This is vitally important because the online system has its quirks and, for instance, if you are doing references/evaluations for more than one person or are doing both a reference and a language evaluation (FLE) for the same applicant, you must match the right Embark notification email with the reference track and the right Embark notification email for the FLE track.
Then for Teaching, you are NOT asked to write a letter but ARE required to answer questions on an online form – and the system is unable to accommodate a letter.
So please don’t write a letter unless you are certain your candidate is definitely applying for a Research/Study or Creative Arts grant.
We don’t want, for instance, a Teaching referee wasting time writing a letter that cannot be accepted and then be asked instead to provide paragraph-long answers to questions.
Please be understanding that familiarity with navigating these online forms varies and therefore the full span of facility must be addressed in the explanations below.
Also, each of these three references has its own peculiarities that may involve a form in addition to a letter or a second form, and so on.
In other words, these particularized guidelines are vital, thank you:
Research/Study Recommendations
