Hello everyone! As many of you, I am currently applying as an ALT. Currently, I am working on my reference letters. I already have one from an university English professor, but I am undecided on whom to ask for the second one. I took three courses of Japanese in my university. My Japanese professor, is the one who directly told me about the program and encouraged me to submit. Despite this, I didn’t particularly involve myself very much during the class and although I get along well with her, she doesn’t really know me very well to the extent of (in my opinion) her letter of recommendation enhancing my application. On the other hand, I have a Communications professor that was responsible of giving me the last course I needed to take in order to graduate from my university. After graduating, and even during the time I was taking his class, I collaborated in a personal project of his. Meaning that I have experience working outside of the classroom with him and he knows me a lot better compared to my Japanese professor.
As you can probably guess, I am very undecided, because I don’t know how much weight does the program put on recommendation letters made in Japanese by professors or people that are from Japan. What would you advise me?
A Japanese professor that has done jet recommendations in the past and knows about the program, but not enough to know me on a personal level, or a professor that knows me a lot better but isn’t familiar with the program at all?
Sorry for the long post. Cheers!
6 comments
Personally, I would choose the communications prof who knows you well. JET acceptance seems to be more about personality and fit rather than about knowledge of Japanese. Plus, your communications prof would likely write well and be great at promoting you. For what it’s worth, neither of my references were Japan-related and I got in!
I second the communication professor, especially since they know you better and actually worked with you.
Also neither of my references had prior knowledge of the JET Program when I asked them. I got hired. If you choose your communication prof, give them some basic info and links about JET to help better write your recommendation.
Boilerplate or personal?
Personal sounds better to me…
Just a thing though, do you not need two references? I did when I applied, and I used two academic references, so could you not use both? Unless you have another person you’d really like to use…
Go with the communications prof.
JETs not interested in ALTs proficient in Japanese. They want someone with a good head on their shoulders n the only way to prove that is to have someone who knows you personally n can vouch for you.
Get a professor or advisor who knows you well. This isn’t just a JET thing, it’s a LOR in general. If you’ve ever lurked the professors reddit, they talk about how students they don’t even remember ask them for LORs, and their hands are pretty much tied as far as “writing a bland LOR” goes.
Always ask the person who you feel will be able to represent your worth as a candidate best. A reference from a Japanese person will not earn you brownie points just because they are Japanese.