1. Try your absolute best to ask for reference letters a minimum of two months in advance. For reference requests less than two months in advance, Professor Mooney's policy is to not guarantee ability to successfully complete the request by the requested time(s) but instead to give some kind of likelihood (e.g., 50% chance).
2. Plan out your schedule to not request a reference over email. Instead, please come to Professor Mooney's office hours (as posted, e.g., on the website of the course(s) currently taught by Prof. Mooney). If you do not live in Georgia then please try to call during office hours, or at least back up any email sent with a phone call.
3. Always bring a latest copy of your Curriculum Vitae and transcript (unofficial is fine). Of course, it is best if the CV highlights issues most relevant to what is being sought by the reference (e.g., for a research position, emphasize prior research experience; for a non-research focused job in industry, emphasize the type of work opportunities desired).
4. Do your absolute best to gather all requests together prior to our meeting in person. If there is a letter to be sent by Professor Mooney via U.S. mail, provide a pre-stamped, preaddressed envelope. After your best effort to finalize your list of requests, provide a summary email with all requested references explained with relevant details (e.g., to be submitted on-line, deadline, etc.). Please note that multiple requests received at multiple times in different formats increase the likelihood that one or more of the requests may be missed/dropped.
5. Prof. Mooney typically sits down one time for an hour or two (or more sometimes, depending on the volume of applications) to read through all recommendation forms (some universities have on-line submissions with several pages of questions, e.g., how long of a time period of interactions with the students, what are some of the most interesting and thought provoking discussions, etc.) and provide all necessary information including a recommendation letter. Therefore, Prof. Mooney requests a deadline for completion of applications after which Prof. Mooney can sit down and complete everything at once. If two deadlines are preferred for some reason (e.g., for application deadlines ranging from November to June it may be difficult to complete all applications by October), then two deadlines are acceptable. If you prefer to just fill out applications "just-in-time" with the corresponding requirement of recommendation letter writers also responding quickly around each university's application deadline, Prof. Mooney does not agree to this.
6. If you are currently taking a course from Professor Mooney for the first time, do not ask for a reference letter until after the final exams have been graded. As a general policy, Professor Mooney does NOT commit to write reference letters for students who have not done anything academic with Prof. Mooney other than be currently in the process of taking a course with Prof. Mooney.
7. If you have only taken one course from Professor Mooney and have not done any undergraduate research or any other coursework with Prof. Mooney, please try to find a different reference who has done more with you in terms of academic/work background. The basic problem is that if you only took one course, even if you earned an "A," the resulting letter is always stronger the more that can be said (e.g., if undergraduate research were carried out as well). Therefore, it is advisable to plan earlier in your Georgia Tech career which Professors (and which research/teaching areas of ECE) interest you the most and so could possibly provide reference letters.
8. After the agreed upon deadline has passed, do not ask Professor Mooney if the letter has been sent; instead, wait for a week after the agreed upon deadline has passed and then ask the recipient (e.g., Stanford U.) if the recommendation letter has been received. If not, then contact Prof. Mooney. Note: if you did not ask Prof. Mooney two months in advance, then there may not be an agreed upon deadline, or Prof. Mooney may say he can only guarantee completion by two months after the day you asked in person which may not be to your liking since there is an earlier deadline. In this case, do not ask Professor Mooney if the letter has been sent; instead, wait until a week after two months after the day you asked Professor Mooney in person (and he agreed) and then first ask the recipient (e.g., Stanford U.) if the recommendation letter has been received. If not, then contact Prof. Mooney. Note2: if you do not like this (e.g., you want to ask in November for a Dec. 1 deadline and want to check with Prof. Mooney if he has completed the reference in December sometime), then please find a different reference letter writer. (For your information, Professor Mooney considers, for example, waiting until November to put effort into graduate school application planning -- thus discovering a possible Dec. 1 deadline -- to be a sign of not being as well organized as you could be in planning out your future.)
9. If you ask to list Prof. Mooney as a reference, a "yes" answer should be interpreted as "yes, for the next two months." The problem is that after, for example, six months or a year have passed, then (i) your professional background may have changed/updated somewhat, perhaps in important ways, and (ii) Professor Mooney may forget some of the important details in your background which are really needed to provide a good reference. Please note that phone calls saying "Joe Schmoe listed you as a reference" -- where Prof. Mooney has not heard anything from Joe Schmoe for over two months -- will not be returned. Please further note that on several occasions Professor Mooney has heard from the former student in question that the student had listed Professor Mooney a very long time ago as a reference and had no idea that now, all of the sudden, the employer was going through the list -- so, you might want to inquire about this with your employer. Finally, please note that Professor Mooney, as a general rule, does not proactively contact students to say, "Hey, I have been asked to provide a reference for you, let us talk and get up to date" -- instead, since you are the one requesting the reference, you should be the proactive party in this matter.
10. If you ask Prof. Mooney for a reference and he agrees, but then you discover you do not need his reference letter (e.g., you decide to accept a job offer and so will not attend graduate school for now), please let me know ASAP. (In one case a particular student really pressured Prof. Mooney for a large number of letters; then, a month and a half later, after Prof. Mooney spent a large amount of time writing up the reference letters, the student said, "Oh, I do not need them anymore, I accepted a job offer a month ago.")
11. Finally, please keep in mind that some semesters a large number (e.g., 5-10) students request recommendation letters, and for this reason Prof. Mooney requests that you plan your applications in a manner that reduces last minute and sudden emails to Prof. Mooney.
Any suggestions, questions or concerns can be addressed to Vincent Mooney
mooney@ece.gatech.edu