Meaning of "Degree of approval" in a recommendation letter Anybody knows what degree of approval means in a letter of reference?


Emphatic
Conditional
Without concerns


My friend has a letter of reference from her former lecturer, but those options were left blank. Is that bad?

It's for a German scholarship, to do a PhD in Chemistry\Forensics.
I would presume that what they're asking for is a tl;dr-style summary of your letter into a single sentence:

I emphatically recommend this candidate. I believe they will be top-quality students and practitioners.

I conditionally recommend. The candidate shows a lot of promise but I have these specific concerns; if thus-and-such happens then I would have no hesitations at all, but if it doesn't you might want to think twice.

I recommend without concerns. The candidate shows a lot of promise; they aren't someone whom I'm sure will be at or near the top of the class, but I have no doubt that they will perform very respectably.