To whom it may concern:

Having served as the Academic Advisor of XXXX at XXXX University for three years, it is a special honor for me to recommend him to your Masters' Program in Real Estate Development, especially so since he is one of my all-time favorite students.

I earned my own Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in Civil Engineering at XXXX University, and I have had the privilege of teaching Engineering Construction here since 1982. I am currently the Dean of XXXX University’s Civil Engineering Department, where my research is focused on advanced construction technologies. I am also the Vice President of the Chinese National Civil Engineering Education Association.

XXXX is super intelligent and diligent, achieving outstanding academic performance in his graduate study. He finished in the top 10% of his undergraduate class of 26 and won the full scholarship for his Master’s program that covered 100% of his tuition fee. Apart from academic study, he also completed two internships, one with a structural design company and the other with an architectural design studio. These experiences will also help XXXX to excel in your Master’s Program.

XXXX is very creative, and he helped me with dozens of structural design projects, including retrofitting, foundation pit support, and concrete and steel structures. I still vividly remember when Yiming was working on his first design for a project of 110,000 SF with foundation pit support. He struggled at first, searching for critical design information in the technical reports and specifications. This was a difficult task for all of us, laboring to translate theoretical principles into working designs, and I guided him throughout the whole process of his first design project. Starting with his second design, he did an incredibly fantastic job and continued to do so for the several following assignments. Each of his design projects went far beyond my expectations, even though they were very different from his previous work. I was amazed at his quick grasp of design essentials and ability to apply his theoretical knowledge to practical ends.

Moreover, he is especially good at scheduling his time and working as efficiently as possible. No matter how complicated the design was, he could always meet the deadline, even during the summer of 2010 when he was volunteering at the Shanghai Expo, landscaping the garden for more than 10 hours a day. Despite his busy schedule, he never failed to support me in my new design. I could always count on his email attachment before midnight with his unique design elements for my review. He is the hardest worker and most passionate, dedicated student I have ever had.

In 2012, I selected XXXX as my Teaching Assistant for my course “Civil Engineering Construction,” a required course offered to more than 400 undergraduates. His responsibilities were to address concerns, review assignments, and, the most challenging part, guide students with their summer internship projects. He had to manage and guide 30 undergraduates who were assigned to six different workplaces, including real estate companies, construction contractors, and construction consulting companies, coordinating the activities of the students and solving any problems that occurred. This position required excellent communication and leadership skill, and XXXX did a fantastic job. I was especially impressed when interviewing those 30 undergraduates for their final exam: almost all mentioned XXXX and appraised him for his comprehensive knowledge and easygoing character. He was well qualified for team management, and I was not surprised to hear that he had been promoted twice in four years.

XXXX stood out among his peers for being proactive and far-sighted. At the beginning of his second year of study, he reached out to me one day to discuss his thesis topic. He proposed to dig into post-install technology and explained his perspective on the promising market of this technology. My philosophy is to give my students the freedom to find their research field as long as it is thoughtful, concrete, and persuasive; thus, I agreed and suggested how he might proceed with this research. Only two months later, I was surprised that he was ready to execute a structural test to verify his theoretical analysis and had already found a partner to fund his testing. He was the first of my students in more than 30 years of teaching and successfully found his financial support. He met the VP of the Hilti Corp on a visit to our campus and convinced him to fund his project and to create a special research fund of US$15,000 for this purpose.

I signed a research agreement with Hilti and assigned XXXX to carry out this research. He developed schedules, coordinated with the lab, and executed the project's modeling, installation, and testing, spending three entire months on the project and testing with highly successful results. In particular, I appreciated Yiming’s pioneering efforts to bond with other research institutes. The research that he initiated at your university is ongoing and continues to reap the rewards for our institution.

Concerning any perceived weakness, perhaps XXXX could have been more challenging and aggressive, sometimes necessary for success in our field. He was inclined to avoid conflict with others and did not like to push them around. When we met last year, I was happy to find that he had matured in this respect and become more assertive as a result of spending several years in management.

I was highly supportive when XXXX told me of his desire to pursue another master's degree in Real Estate from your prestigious program at XXXX with an emphasis on real estate financing and investment. I am confident that he will continue to demonstrate his creative abilities as a graduate student in your program and will continue to make important contributions throughout his lifetime to our global real estate market after graduation.

Sincerely,