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The application process is being updated
The Foundation is moving to a new scholarship application process. The guidance on this site still describes the previous process and has not yet been updated. Updated information will be published here soon.
A student has asked you to write a letter of recommendation for the Goldwater Scholarship — thank you. Letters play a critical role in the evaluation of every nominee, and this section tells you exactly what the Foundation needs from you.
What the Goldwater Scholarship is
The Goldwater Scholarship is the federal government’s premier award for college sophomores and juniors who intend to pursue research careers in the natural sciences, engineering, and mathematics. The Foundation’s goal is to identify the nation’s next generation of research leaders — and your letter is one of the strongest signals reviewers have of whether your student is one of them.
The essentials
Each nominee needs three letters
The most important comes from a research mentor; other strong writers include faculty and postdocs who have observed a student’s research, and instructors of science, math, or engineering courses.
You submit your own letter
You submit your letter yourself, to the online application system rather than to the Foundation, by the deadline the student’s Campus Representative gives you. You can type the letter into a narrative box that holds about two pages or upload it as a PDF.
Format rules are strictly enforced
Letters are limited to two single-spaced pages, and letters that do not meet the format requirements will not be read. See How to Submit a Letter of Recommendation.
Deadlines are campus-specific
Your deadline comes from your campus’s CR, and it will be well before the Foundation’s national deadline (the last Friday in January). Plan for four to five weeks of lead time from the request.
Before you say yes
A strong Goldwater letter is specific and substantive; a generic two-paragraph letter can actually hurt the student’s chances. Consider declining — promptly, so an alternate writer can be found — if you do not know the student well enough, cannot give the letter the time it deserves, or are not comfortable writing the kind of letter described in this section.
If you accept, sit down with the student first: discuss their research and career aspirations, and ask for their information packet (résumé, draft application materials, and a summary of the work you supervised or observed).
You can write candidly. Information disclosed in the student’s research essay and in the rest of the application is kept confidential, and all Foundation reviewers sign a confidentiality and conflict of interest agreement. If making your case means discussing unpublished results or work still in progress, you can do so.
In this section
What to say in your letter, how to deliver it, and answers to common questions.