If you have an enough academic background, you can surely relate to academic letters though you might have to brainstorm a little to recall those academic letters that you or someone for you had written during your academic career. Think of the reference letter from your previous institute teacher that helped you get admission in a renowned university. That was an academic reference letter. Think of the letter that you had written yourself to an academy or college to grant you admission. That was an academic cover letter. Think a little more and you’ll recall that a senior of yours had written a personal reference letter for you in order to get you selected for a training program supposed to be only for selected students. That was a personal reference letter. Collectively, they all were academic letters.
When we define business letters we say they’re letter written by or for the people in the business sphere. Similarly the academic letters are the letters written by or for the academic people; students, teachers etc. You may overlook tens of other types of academic letters just because you have never written them. A few of those tens of academic letters are ; college recommendation letter from a teacher, recommendation letter for graduate school, law school reference letter, character reference letter, reference request letter, fee concession letter to Vice Chancellor of university, college transfer application letter etc. You can elongate this chain of academic letters as much as you brainstorm.
Don’t regret for not availing the opportunity to write reference letters that might have brought you benefits as you can still write them though a little later, a little differently. On behalf of your children: Not a bad idea? When you do so, don’t forget that Google can help you search good examples of all academic letters. It provides you with professional templates too lest you ruin your child’s academic career!