I know there is no common app for grad school, but can anyone tell me how letters of reference work in this regard. If a student is applying to, say, 6 grad programs, do the faculty who are writing LORs for them need to write 6 individualized letters, or do they write one that isn’t specific to the individual programs and then upload the non-specific letter to the individual portals on behalf of the student?
I had assumed the latter, but was just talking with someone who assumed the former so would love to know.
My daughter is currently in a graduate program. She had 4 letter writers and each one wrote 1 letter (she applied to 15 programs). Each recommender uploaded the 1 letter to 15 portals.
They did not write letters specific to the program.
My kid only applied to two schools with similar programs so one letter for each recommender would have been fine. But for academic jobs, the recommenders do tweak each letter for the particular university.
I have a daughter who is applying to PhD programs. She first contacted each of her references to make sure that they were fine with giving her a reference (and gave them a bit of information that might be useful to them – such as what she had done since graduation for the professor who was her advisor in university). Then she sent the contact information to each of the schools. Then each of her recommenders sends the recommendation directly to the school.
I think that it would be up to each recommender whether they use the same letter multiple times, or if they tweak it a bit for each program. I would expect that at least 95% of the recommendation would stay the same for each school, and it would not surprise me if exactly the same recommendation goes to each university in many cases.
However, it would help sometimes to make a small reference to why the applicant would be a god fit for that particular program. Admission to a PhD program is more like a job application than like a college application. The program doesn’t just want to know that the student is great, but, more importantly, would the student do well in the program.
The most important things are in common, i.e., the abilities of this student to do original research, but a line or two about how this student will be a great addition to that particular program is beneficial. Not critical, but can help.
In some cases, though, if the applicant is applying to two programs which differ because the applicant is indeed interested in ether one of these programs, in that case, the letters may need a bit more tweaking.
As I wrote, though, the most important part of the letter is to say why the recommender thinks that this student will be able to do the research that is required for a PhD thesis, and do it well.
When my son was applying to Econ PhD top 5 programs, one of his recommenders was an extremely well known (name regularly comes up in Nobel speculation every fall) economist. He knew many people at each program and wrote individual letters followed up with calls to each program. The other two recommenders were less eminent in the field and wrote a general letter that had minor modifications for each school.
I’m a professor who writes reference letters for students who are applying to grad programs. I usually write one letter per student, which explains why the student would be a good fit for the type or program they’re applying to. Most of my students stay local for grad school, and they only apply to a few programs, so the one letter usually does the trick. I might tailor the letter for multiple programs if they’re applying to different kinds of degree programs, if a program has a specialty that is especially suited to the applicant’s interests, or if I have some personal/professional tie with the program – but even then, most of the letter will be the same, because it’ll pertain to the student’s accomplishments in college.
When the applicant starts the application at each school, they’ll enter the names and contact info for each recommender, and then I’ll get the invitation to upload the letter. Sometimes, there will also be a brief form to fill out (ranking the applicant relative to other students I’ve taught in multiple categories).