Imperial Recommendation Letter Example: Commerce student unclear between finance and policy (Score 92)

To the Admissions Committee MSc Economics and Finance Imperial College Business School I am writing in support of the applicant's application to the MSc Economics and Finance programme at Imperial. I supervised the applicant's independent research paper over the course of one semester, reviewing weekly methodology memos and meeting regularly to discuss analytical choices and their justification. My comments below are based on what I directly observed during that process. The applicant came to the independent paper with a background in general business and commerce modules rather than a dedicated economics or finance track. That starting point matters for context, because the methodological demands of the paper — identifying a causal mechanism in a finance-adjacent policy question — were not trivial for someone without prior econometrics coursework. What I found, over the first three or four memo cycles, was that the applicant was willing to slow down and interrogate assumptions rather than reach for a convenient specification. In one early memo, the applicant had proposed a simple OLS regression to estimate the effect of a financing condition on firm-level outcomes. When I pushed back on the endogeneity concern in our meeting, the response was not defensive. The applicant returned the following week with a revised memo that laid out two alternative identification strategies, noted the data limitations that made one of them impractical, and made a reasoned case for the approach that remained. That kind of structured response to methodological critique is not something I can teach in a single session; it reflects a disposition toward honest reasoning that I think will serve the applicant well in a technically demanding programme. A second scene is worth describing. Midway through the semester, the applicant was working on the commerce and finance analysis component of the paper — essentially mapping capital structure patterns across a small cross-sectional dataset. The applicant flagged, unprompted, that the sample size made any inference fragile and drafted a limitations section that was more candid than most students at this level would write. I reviewed that draft carefully. The framing was accurate, the caveats were proportionate rather than self-defeating, and the applicant had correctly identified which conclusions could still be drawn with appropriate hedging. That combination — knowing what you can claim and what you cannot — is precisely the discipline that quantitative work in economics and finance requires. I should be honest about one area where the applicant is still developing. The motivation connecting the applied finance work to broader policy questions was not always clearly articulated in the written memos. The applicant clearly has genuine interest in both domains, but the written reasoning sometimes moved between finance-side and policy-side framings without fully resolving the tension. This is not a fundamental weakness — it reads more like an early-stage researcher who has not yet settled on a primary lens — but it is something the applicant will need to sharpen, particularly in a programme where the economics and finance interface is taken seriously. I raised this in supervision, and the applicant acknowledged it directly and began working on a cleaner framing in the final paper draft. The trajectory was positive. For the MSc Economics and Finance at Imperial specifically, I think the applicant's profile is credible. The quantitative project demonstrated that the applicant can engage with empirical methods at a level above what the commerce background alone would predict, and the response to critique suggests the intellectual flexibility that a rigorous taught programme demands. The transition from a general commerce foundation to a specialist economics and finance programme is a real step, and I would not overstate the applicant's current technical depth relative to candidates from dedicated economics degrees. What I can say is that the applicant has shown, in the work I reviewed, a serious and honest approach to methodology that I associate with students who do well when the technical demands increase. I recommend the applicant for admission and am happy to discuss any aspect of my observations further. Yours sincerely,