What is the letter of recommendation?

[Grands]

you said your teachers do not write in english and asked if you yourself could translate for them. the answer in my opinion is no, since it is best if you yourself do not see the letter of reccommendation. a letter is considered more believable if the candidate does not see it.

That means that I have to teach teachers to do something that I can't read...wow.

Not credible!

Why?!?

You might also write some professors at Italian universities and ask for advice, as many of them have studied in the US and UK.

I searched so many CV and none of italians professors that have studied in UK or US are in Italy now, they obviously prefer to stay where they studied.

Letters of recommendation exist basically everywhere, where exactly they are needed depends on the country.

We don't have letter of recommendation, you go to the university by your own.

 

[Grands]

PS. Is this letter needed also for a PhD?

 

[symbolipoint]

Grands said:

Ok, I will try, I asked just because it's something I never heard about, and also my teachers aren't aware of the letter of recommendation, which is probably a trivial topic for most of the students.

When we finish High School we are free to do what we want, there are no rules, you just go to study where you want ( if you have the money to do it).
This means that it doesn't matter how good you are at high school, no one will pay attention on it, I know people with the maximum grades that didn't go to the university.

You asked why this is not credible.
It simply is not credible! Your "teachers are not aware of letter of recommendation,..." . That is incredible on its face.

"...,This means that it doesn't matter how good you are at high school, no one will pay attention on it, I know people with the maximum grades that didn't go to the university."
Again, this is not believable. If a student is not qualified for a program, why would the university simply allow him to study it without his first fulfilling the prerequisite skills and knowledge? Having the money is absolutely not the same as having the technical competence. A legitimate university will operate differently than you say.

 

[Grands]

It simply is not credible! Your "teachers are not aware of letter of recommendation,..." . That is incredible on its face.

How can I prove this?

Again, this is not believable. If a student is not qualified for a program, why would the university simply allow him to study it without his first fulfilling the prerequisite skills and knowledge? Having the money is absolutely not the same as having the technical competence. A legitimate university will operate differently than you say.

University doesn't care how good you was at high school, when you start a university you start from 0, and no one know who you are and what did you do in the past, no one care.
You don't need money for tuition fees, but just for rent and cost of living, that is something you need even if you don't go to the university.

 

[symbolipoint]

How can I prove this?University doesn't care how good you was at high school, when you start a university you start from 0, and no one know who you are and what did you do in the past, no one care.
You don't need money for tuition fees, but just for rent and cost of living, that is something you need even if you don't go to the university.

I guess what you say is what you say. If nobody from Italy contributes to this topic to confirm or deny it, then all we have is what has been written here so far. If anyone has some connections to Italy, he may too know more completely what is what.

 

[Grands]

I guess what you say is what you say. If nobody from Italy contributes to this topic to confirm or deny it, then all we have is what has been written here so far. If anyone has some connections to Italy, he may too know more completely what is what.

I just don't understand why is so strange for you this situation.

 

[CrysPhys]

PS. Is this letter needed also for a PhD?

Again this up to the individual school and practice may vary among different countries. But most likely, yes. It was a long time since I applied for grad school, but I think I needed to send three letters to all the schools I applied to.

 

[Grands]

Again this up to the individual school and practice may vary among different countries. But most likely, yes. It was a long time since I applied for grad school, but I think I needed to send three letters to all the schools I applied to.

There aren't any test ?
We usually have a limited number of places for people that want to get a PhD.
So basically there is a test and the people that obtain the great score can be admitted.
If there are 10 places will be taken the 10 best scores.

 

[CrysPhys]

There aren't any test ?
We usually have a limited number of places for people that want to get a PhD.
So basically there is a test and the people that obtain the great score can be admitted.
If there are 10 places will be taken the 10 best scores.

In the US, typical entrance exams are the Graduate Record Exams (GRE's). As in the case of undergrad admissions, for many major schools, many more qualified applicants (all with high test scores) will apply than there are positions. So test scores alone are not sufficient. Applicants are evaluated on the basis of a matrix of criteria (depends on the school and department), not just test scores.

 

[StoneTemplePython]

http://www.mastersportal.eu/articles/1615/how-to-apply-to-an-international-university-in-italy-in-2017.html

notice under "Required application documents"
'Letter of recommendation'

OP may nitpick that this is as being for an "international university" in Italy, for master's degrees. Nevertheless these are universities in Italy.

I found this with 5 seconds of work on google.

 

[symbolipoint]

http://www.mastersportal.eu/articles/1615/how-to-apply-to-an-international-university-in-italy-in-2017.html

notice under "Required application documents"
'Letter of recommendation'

OP may nitpick that this is as being for an "international university" in Italy, for master's degrees. Nevertheless these are universities in Italy.

I found this with 5 seconds of work on google.

Grands must now be better informed and if he goes to attend an undergraduate program at an Italian university, he should at least do some nice lab work and do well. He may then be in a better position to earn a possible letter of recommendation or two, or three, from there; and be able to include them in his application package when applying for admission to a graduate program. He will need to determine what he wants to study more specifically later than what he is able to choose at present. Grands, you may want to find some academic research to do for someone or also look for an internship which you may later qualify for.

 

[mathwonk]

I gave you a link to Professor Alberto Collino of Torino who took his PhD at MIT in US, and here is another, Profesor Enrico Arbarello of Universita La Sapienza Roma, who took his PhD at Columbia in US. Here is another, Professor Giuseppe Ceresa, who took his PhD at Utah in US. There is also Paolo Aluiffi now at Florida State in the US who took the PhD at Brown in US.

http://www1.mat.uniroma1.it/people/arbarello/Curriculum.html

http://didattica.uniroma2.it/docenti/curriculum/3806-Giuseppe-Ceresa-Genet

https://www.math.fsu.edu/~aluffi/

 

[Grands]

http://www.mastersportal.eu/articles/1615/how-to-apply-to-an-international-university-in-italy-in-2017.html

notice under "Required application documents"
'Letter of recommendation'

OP may nitpick that this is as being for an "international university" in Italy, for master's degrees. Nevertheless these are universities in Italy.

I found this with 5 seconds of work on google.

Maybe that is something for people that come from other countries.

We don't have: letter of recommendation, letter of motivation, academic transcript, SAT, ACT, Portfolio.

That site is not an official university web site, if you want to know what you need to entry in a italian university you can check here http://www.unimi.it/ENG/admission/29528.htm

 

[symbolipoint]

Maybe that is something for people that come from other countries.

We don't have: letter of recommendation, letter of motivation, academic transcript, SAT, ACT, Portfolio.

That site is not an official university web site, if you want to know what you need to entry in a italian university you can check here http://www.unimi.it/ENG/admission/29528.htm

Forum members and other visitors on the forum, as you read what is in that site, notice that much of what Grands has been told (from members participating in his many forum topics) is very consistent with what is read in that site. There ARE some entrance requirements, including for undergraduate admissions. Not yet clear about "transcripts", but I will guess that transcripts will be found to be part of the necessary proof of eligibility for admission to their undergraduate programs.

 

[symbolipoint]

Maybe that is something for people that come from other countries.

We don't have: letter of recommendation, letter of motivation, academic transcript, SAT, ACT, Portfolio.

That site is not an official university web site, if you want to know what you need to entry in a italian university you can check here http://www.unimi.it/ENG/admission/29528.htm

One of the requirements for entrance to programs and courses seems to be tests for qualifications. This would, one would guess, be in addition to transcripts - like, transcripts of previous work alone is not enough to allow the student to be in a program or course; but passing certain tests is the requirements.

 

[Grands]

One of the requirements for entrance to programs and courses seems to be tests for qualifications. This would, one would guess, be in addition to transcripts - like, transcripts of previous work alone is not enough to allow the student to be in a program or course; but passing certain tests is the requirements.

We have test in some courses like Veterinary, and Architecture, cause there are limitate places of work for people that can work in the public sector.
There are no limits for engineering, physics, maths, Literature, Law, Philosophy and more etc...
Some of this university have tests but you don't have to pass it, is just a test for you, to understand if you are able to study that kind of subject, but you can join the university in any case.

 

[symbolipoint]

We have test in some courses like Veterinary, and Architecture, cause there are limitate places of work for people that can work in the public sector.
There are no limits for engineering, physics, maths, Literature, Law, Philosophy and more etc...
Some of this university have tests but you don't have to pass it, is just a test for you, to understand if you are able to study that kind of subject, but you can join the university in any case.

Wow! Yah, right! Good luck on that second part. I still do not really believe it. You might try that and report back to us how it went. To be more secure about what is in fact the true situation, ask for counseling advice from the universities at which you wish to attend.

 

[TeethWhitener]

Just as a general note, much of what @Grands is saying seems to check out in terms of admission to undergraduate programs at Italian universities. The requirements seem to be: 1) high school diploma (or equivalent), 2) occasionally a transcript requirement, and 3) an admissions test (sometimes competitive, sometimes not, depending on the program of study). Some universities also have language proficiency requirements, but many seem to offer the option to study in English or Italian.

See, e.g.,
http://en.uniroma1.it/study-us/undergraduate/admissions/second-cycle
http://www.unimi.it/ENG/admission/31190.htm
http://www.unibo.it/en/teaching/degree-programmes/programme/2017/8007

This leniency in admissions requirements leads to large universities. For instance, the University of Milan enrolls ~60,000 students (edit: Bologna has ~80k students and Rome Sapienza has >110k...yowza!). This is bigger than any US university (UCF is #1 with ~55k enrollees).

Needless to say, the post-secondary education landscape in Italy is quite different from that of the US (and probably much of the rest of the world), and much of the advice that we would give to a college-bound student in the US is likely not to be applicable to @Grands 's situation. My suggestion would be to make friends with the guidance counselor, but then again, I don't know if Italy has guidance counseling that's comparable to what's seen in the US.

 

[symbolipoint]

TeethWhitener
Thanks for trying to explain some of the differences from other places' systems.

 

[Grands]

Wow! Yah, right! Good luck on that second part. I still do not really believe it. You might try that and report back to us how it went. To be more secure about what is in fact the true situation, ask for counseling advice from the universities at which you wish to attend.

I'm 100% sure.
We don't have admission test for 80% of undergraduate degree.
The only courses that have ones are the ones I wrote before, and that courses don't have a master degree, them are single courses of 5-6 years.

 

[Grands]

My suggestion would be to make friends with the guidance counselor, but then again, I don't know if Italy has guidance counseling that's comparable to what's seen in the US.

We don't have a guidance counseling.

The test is based on very simply mathematical questions, like trigonometry, thing that almost anyone who went to high school know.
Like I said before you don't have to pass it.

 

[CrysPhys]

TeethWhitener
Thanks for trying to explain some of the differences from other places' systems.

Many here have found at least some aspects of Grands accounts of the Italian education system to be not credible. But I'd like to point out that I graduated high school in Massachusetts in the early '70s. If I recall correctly after all these decades, the policy then was that any student who graduated from a Massachusetts high school was guaranteed admission into U. of Mass. You still had to submit a formal application and receive a formal acceptance, but acceptance was guaranteed. It was the ultimate "safety" school, and our guidance officers told us all to apply even if we were confident of getting accepted to better schools. I no longer live there and don't know whether that policy still holds.

 

[mathwonk]

Indeed, I seem to recall that in the 1980's one of my Italian friends said that students often registered at laSapienza just to be able to eat at the presumably heavily subsidized cafeteria, but with no interest in completing a course of study.

 

[mathwonk]

The whole system was somewhat eccentric. The university librarians' union was very powerful and forced the closure of the research library daily at noon. Even though I was a university researcher I was obliged to quit the library and continue my research at home in the afternoon.

 

[mathwonk]

In spite of some eccentricities, there are excellent faculty members in the Italian system, from whom one could certainly learn a lot. All the professors I listed above are internationally recognized experts in algebraic geometry. Another such is Professor Van Geemen, who appears in the second link from Teethwhitener as Head of studies in mathematics at Univ of Milano. He is originally from Holland but has been in residence in Italy for some time. So the Italian system also attracts experts from abroad.

 

[donpacino]

We don't have: letter of recommendation, letter of motivation, academic transcript, SAT, ACT, Portfolio.

In the link you posted there is a section for passing year 2 and 1 tests, which replaces the sat and act.
A portfolio is simply a collection of the work you have done. many colleges in the US don't require it either, but it can help you get in. Even if an Italian university doesn't require it, you might consider making one. Same with your transcript. If they arent required for application and no one ever submits them, then you really shouldn't even be asking for advice, because apparently you can get into any itallian university by passing high school.

 

[CrysPhys]

If they arent required for application and no one ever submits them, then you really shouldn't even be asking for advice, because apparently you can get into any itallian university by passing high school.

Grands' lead-off post concerned application to a UK university. Most of his questions stem from major differences between practices in Italy and practices in other countries, should he decide to apply outside of Italy.

 

[symbolipoint]

Hi guys.
My question is, what is the letter of recommendation ?
Is basically a letter wrote by a teacher for a student that want to go to the university?

How it works?

I noticed that if I want to apply for Uk universities I need one.

Thanks.

Grands's question here seems to be answered now. The thing he would consider now, is what might he do between now (still in high school) and the time of preparing his application package for a UK university, so that someone (boss, supervisor, manager, teacher) will know enough about his work and habits to be able to write a letter of recommendation.