Student Affairs
In light of the current situation with the COVID-19 pandemic, Stanford reaffirms its commitment to perform individualized, holistic review of each applicant to its graduate and professional programs. We recognize that students may have faced significant challenges during the period of disruption caused by the pandemic, and we will take such individual circumstances into account during application review. Importantly, we will respect decisions regarding the adoption of Credit/No Credit and other grading options during this unprecedented period of COVID-19 disruption, whether they are made by institutions or by individual students. Our goal remains to form graduate student cohorts that are excellent and encompass a diversity of perspectives, backgrounds and experiences that enrich the graduate educational experience.
Admitted students: see our special instructions for submitting transcripts. We are aware of some school closings in areas impacted by the coronavirus outbreak, and that it may delay some courses of study as well as the reporting of official school documents. If you are impacted by this, please contact our office to request an extension: gradadmissions@stanford.edu. We will do our best to work with you and your department.
Winter Closure: The University observes Winter closure from Monday, December 14, 2020 through Friday, January 1, 2021. The Graduate Admissions office will not be monitoring email during this time.
Information for Recommenders
As part of Stanford University’s online graduate application, applicants register the email addresses of the individuals they have asked to submit letters of recommendation on their behalf. Recommendations must be submitted electronically through our online service to the department to which an applicant has applied. Application deadlines vary by department. Please contact the applicant if you have a question about the application deadline.
- Submit a Recommendation: Instructions for you to create a recommendation account are sent to your email address, as entered by the applicant in their online application. Click on the link in your email and follow the instructions to create a recommendation account. In the recommendation, you will be asked to fill out a very brief form and to upload your letter, which may be a Word document (.doc or .docx) or a .pdf file, must be 5MB or less in size and cannot be password protected. PDF files cannot have a digital signature. Recommendations should comment on the applicant's academic potential for graduate work.
- Decline a Recommendation Request: Through your recommendation account, you may choose to decline to submit a recommendation. When you decline, please include the reason for your decision in your message to the applicant.
- Make a Change After Submitting the Recommendation: After the recommendation has been submitted, changes are not possible using the online process. Please contact Graduate Admissions for further instructions: gradadmissions@stanford.edu.
- Report a Technical Issue or Request Help: Within the recommender request email you received is a link for recommenders to use to check FAQ or get online help. The link is also accessible through the recommender's account, after it is established.
