Asking a rec from a prof I don't know well

ab2013
Mon, 12 Nov 2012 21:56:08 +0000

Hmm … interesting. How should I phrase this e-mail? I imagine it’s going to be short and fairly awkward, even if it’s courteous.

Actually, my advisors told me that I should ask the professor whose class I excelled in the most even though that would be a generic one. I did end up asking a professor who also was my program advisor for most of my undergrad, though I didn’t do that well in his class (got a B+), but I was really involved in his class / office hours so I’m hoping that plays in my favor, and I think he knows me fairly well. The third one is going to be research-based for sure; I’m just debating between the one I did first-year (which was absolutely huge because my research sponsor ended up getting a huge grant from the feds and my work helped contribute to it) and the one I did/am still involved with, which is much smaller in impact/significance but much closer to my interests now.