Acceptance Letter: Types, Samples and How to Write

There might be various times in your professional life when you’ll need to write an acceptance letter: the time you’ll be receiving offers from companies to join a post that you had applied for, a call for the interview of a job you had applied for, a call for admission in your favorite college. In those cases, you are the acceptor and hence the letter.

But things can work the other way around, too. The college may “accept” you; the interviewer may “accept” you and so on. Let’s make things clearer.

Definition and Types of Acceptance Letter

An acceptance letter is defined as the “formal indication of a successful application.” An example of this will be the college acceptance letter that the principal or the admission commission writes to a student after reviewing their academics. 

This can also be defined as the formal, affirmative response in the form of a letter confirming an invitation, job offer, scholarship, contract, gift, etc. For example, the acceptance of the position in a job offer by the successful candidate. This is called the job acceptance letter that you write as a candidate after viewing the offered job responsibilities, requirements and benefits.

Job Acceptance Letter   College Acceptance Letter   Resignation Acceptance Letter   Internship Acceptance Letter  

 

There can be a lot of acceptance letters. For example:

• Job acceptance letter (sample ⇗)
• Resignation acceptance letter (sample)
• Internship acceptance letter from a company to a university (sample)
• College acceptance letter (sample)
• Interview acceptance letter
• Invitation acceptance letter
• Honor acceptance letter
• Requested business meeting acceptance letter
• Business proposal/proposal acceptance letter, etc.

Format and Content of an Acceptance Letter:

          Start with:

• Your name, address, and date. Adding the name is optional as I have seen many letters straight on starting with the address, omitting the name. This is justified in case you are the one who has accepted/is going to accept/will accept the unsolicited offer. Since they approached you, they must be aware of whom it was sent to. Nevertheless, you can mention your name since not doing so might create confusion before they start to even read the letter. However, if you’re planning not to do it in the beginning, you can mention your name while signing at last.
• Mention the name of the person you are writing to, his/her post, the name of the company and the address of the company.
• Add a well-suited salutation.

         Proceeding to the body:

• State clearly and directly why you are writing. Start by saying you are pleased to accept so and so position/invitation/offer etc.
• If you are writing a job acceptance letter, mention the post you’ll be working for, in which department, and at what salary. If you are writing an interview acceptance letter, let them know when you’ll be arriving to attend it and the necessary details of the interview that you can reaffirm. It actually varies according to the type.
• State your gratefulness for consideration and opportunity.
• Add details and ask questions if you need to know something.
• End with a note of goodwill and another expression of happiness and/or gratitude.

         Close with:

         Your signature and typed name.

Dos and Don'ts of Writing an Acceptance Letter:

• Be professional and polite in your format and tone.
• Identify the recipient of the letter correctly.
• Accept in clear words. There’s no room for you to “try” to take the position or to accept at the moment and saying you might change it later.
• Confirm the details.
• Sound positive.
• Don’t forget to proofread and edit if needed.

So, you see once you know the format and what goes in, it becomes pretty simple to draft a well-written acceptance letter. Research how to write each type if you want your letter to be more refined.