Hey everyone,
I’m a 3rd year University student graduating in March, hoping to be accepted by JET next year. Before applications open up, I wanted to ask about the reference requirements, specifically whether or not having 2 academic references would be strong enough for an application. I live in a fairly small city in NZ so professional references are pretty lacking (only 1 or 2 part time jobs) and although I have previous teaching experience, it was in a pretty bad working environment and so I no longer have contact with my bosses from that company.
6 comments
Hi! I applied this year as a 3rd year uni student, albeit from the UK.
I chose to use two academic references as I had only just started a new job. Also, my degree is directly related to teaching and Japanese, so it felt more fitting for my tutors to provide a reference.
A large proportion of applicants will be in their final year of university so will most likely use two academic references.
Best of luck with your application 😊
I applied in 2019 for 2020 departure and was accepted (although our group didn’t end up getting out here until late 2021 lol thanks covid). Both of my reference letters were written by university lecturers 🙂
Most people use 2 academic references. My self included.
It’s good to be prepared but JET is not as competitive as you might think. I recommend deciding on 2 professors and have a set of back up professors in mind, too. Then focus on your SoP and having your documentation ready for when the app opens up.
You don’t need to be an all star to make this happen.
Don’t overthink any aspect of the application. People have varied backgrounds and it’s all fine.
You can use two academic references.
Some advice – do you volunteer at all? If so, the reference is just someone who supervised you, not necessarily from a job.
The references do count a fair bit, so branching out to show you’re well rounded can help a lot. The program is competitive, especially for us coming from countries with less spots. You’ll want to do everything you can to make your application strong.
That being said, don’t sweat it if you use two academic ones. A lot of recent graduates get on the program and do just that.
I asked my lecturer for a reference and they basically gave me a letter of recommendation, that shouldn’t be an issue should it?