<p>Hey everyone,</p>
<p>A mentor of mine asked me to ghostwrite a reccomendation, and that he'd look it over and sign it. As much as I don't like gloating about myself, would anyone mind posting/PMing an example of a particularly stellar reccomendation letter? I don't want to be boring, and I want to know what kinds of things really stand out. What kinds of things make a great letter...great?</p>
<p>This is not what you asked to hear but I find that highly unethical. Letters of recommendation are required by colleges so that they can get a better handle on what others that know you see in you. But writing your own letter and sending it as if from a mentor you are essentially lying to colleges.</p>
<p>If your mentor doesn’t have time to write a letter for himself or doesn’t know you well enough, I suggest you ask someone else to write one for you.</p>
<p>Yeah, you’re probably right. I know the guy pretty well, so if I asked him I think he would write it, but I think his main concern was that his english wasn’t the greatest. </p>
<p>Still, I think it’d help him out to see some quality rec letters to use as examples.</p>
<p>Whether or not his English is decent should not be a factor. Recommendations written by the students themselves never tend to be useful - they are not only easily detectable because they often tend to recapitulate too much of the same stuff the student focused on in their app, but also because they are bland. You want to get your mentor/whoever to just write some unique observations about you, that only someone from his perspective could have. It need not be long; many top colleges don’t care if he writes only a couple of paragraphs, as long as it sets out exactly why you belong at said college.
There are no generic “quality rec letters” - the best ones are unique and would only apply to the specific person it is written for.</p>
<p>I suggest we close this thread… This is an ethical concern, in addition to the fact that modeling a rec letter on other rec letters just makes it generic. That defeats the entire purpose of a rec, which is to have an intelligent mentor reflect on the idiosyncrasies of the student and their intellectual and personal qualities. I think you’d be surprised at what people notice about you that you don’t see in yourself. The essay is the chance for you to express your personal voice and opinions of yourself.</p>