EPLT Online

According to the MET admissions page (http://www.met.ubc.ca/application/), one of the requirements for your application is the submission of three reference letters. These letters are very important parts of your application. While the first thing we look at in your application file is your upper-level course grades (what I’ll call your “evaluated GPA,” as it’s different from your overall GPA), your references tell how other people think you will do in a graduate program. These references become especially important when your evaluated GPA does not meet the minimum admission requirements. While international transcripts are evaluated on their entire GPA, the above statement still applies regarding references.One question we often get asked (so much so that it’s part of our FAQ) is “I don’t have any academic references. Can I get professional references instead?” This is a good question. Academic references are much stronger indicators of how you will do in a graduate program, but we realize that many applicants to the MET program last attended school 5,10,15 or more years ago and will find it impossible to get academic references. If your degree is recent, you should be able to get academic references, but if your degree is older, professional ones are fine as long as they can speak to your initiative, intellectual capacity and industry. Please keep in mind that professional references may not be as convincing to the admissions committee if your evaluated GPA is low, but they are better than nothing.

The MET Program, through the Faculty of Graduate Studies, has initiated an “e-reference” process for MET applications. If you list your reference’s email address on your application, an email will be sent to your reference after you have submitted the application. This email will contain a link to an online reference form that he/she can fill out and then submit to us. It will come to us instantaneously, avoiding the hassle and delay of mailing it. The important thing to remember about e-references, however, is that web-based email addresses (Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail) are not accepted.

This e-reference form is the same as the regular reference form, and is mainly for academic references. It can still be used by non-academic references, but a lot of it doesn’t really apply. If you would rather your reference send us a letter, that is acceptable too. There are some important things to remember about references that are mailed to us, though.

First, if a letter is being submitted, it should be typed on official letterhead.

Secondly, and most important, no matter whether it’s a letter or a reference form it should be submitted to us directly by the reference, in an envelope with the reference’s signature over the seal. If you wish to collect the references and submit them all at once, please make sure you do not open them and that the signature is unbroken. We cannot accept references that don’t come to us like that, and we will have to ask for a re-submission. This wastes both our time, your time, and especially your reference’s time.

References are an important part of your MET application, and more time is spent on getting them correct than on transcripts in many cases. Paying close attention to the requirements will make your application process much smoother, hopefully reducing your stress level.