Recommendations and Institutional Endorsements

Once you have provided the contact information for your recommenders and your institutional endorser (if required), an email from our automated system will be sent to them. (We strongly recommend that you contact them in advance of this email to talk about your application). You will be able to monitor in the system to see when recommenders have sent in their recommendations, although you will not be able to see the actual recommendations. This email is the only notification they will receive from the system so you must have their correct email address when you enter their information.

Recommenders

In case of unforeseen circumstances, you can change recommenders that have not submitted a recommendation up until your application has been submitted. Once a recommender has submitted a recommendation, you cannot change that person out for a different recommender.

You can also use the “reminder” option in the application to send reminder emails to your recommenders, though it’s best to talk to them as the application deadline approaches as they may no longer be available.

We now ask for your relationship to the recommender so our readers can better understand the point of view from which the recommendation is written.

Institutional Endorsement

Full time students are required to have an institutional endorsement from their college or university. 

Students in the first two years of graduate school should also seek to provide references from both undergraduate and graduate faculty.

Who provides the Institutional Endorsement at my school?

The Mitchell Scholarship Program will accept institutional endorsements from a university president, dean, or fellowship advisor.

Please use the find an advisor tool to learn if your campus's nominating official has registered. If no one from your university is listed, check with your Provost or Dean of Faculty for the correct person and ask them to register with us. It is often the same person who also manages the nomination processes for other major national programs such as the Marshall, Rhodes, and Truman Scholarships.

A letter of endorsement should describe the on-campus university selection or review process of prospective candidates as well as addressing the characteristics of a candidate.

Fellowship Advisor Read-Only Access

You can choose (but are not required) to allow your school’s fellowship advisor to have read-only access to your application for advisement purposes. The fellowship advisor will be able to read over your application and make comments directly to you, but will not be able to edit or change anything on your application and will not be able to submit your application on your behalf.

You can permit this access at any time until your application has been submitted.