<p>Is asking three recommendation letters from somebody that's not a teacher unreasonable? I wanted to ask a doctor from UPenn that I'm interning under to write me a recommendation letter for UPenn, Brown and Stanford. I'm afraid I'll be asking too much, but I know that it will help me a whole lot. </p>
<p>Oh, and if this changes anything, I'm not a rising senior. I'm still a sophomore right now and I'm working under the UPenn doctor this summer.</p>
<p>Just get him to write one letter and you can photocopy it to send to different colleges yourself. Additional rec letters (not from HS academic teachers) don’t have to be confidential.</p>
<p>As fiona said the doctor can simply write one letter and then just change the name of the college.</p>
<p>Yes, so let him know when you ask him that you’ll need to recopy the recommendations another 2 times. Just have him write one single one and you can send them to the different schools.</p>
<p>Oh, so would I just tell him to not address any school in particular? And if so , will colleges care? Sorry, I’m not super familiar with this process!</p>
<h1>1 Yes, to make it more convenient for him, just have him address it something like “I would like to recommend Abraham Carlson for admission to your college”</h1>
<h1>2 No colleges won’t mind at all, this is pretty standard MO</h1>
<p>It is very standard for all teachers you ask for recommendations from to ask them to write one general one and then just either change the school name or just not mention the school at all, like Fiona_ said.</p>
<p>You can ask him to have a special addition to the UPenn recommendation since he graduated from there and can give some insight about you being a good fit with UPenn or whatever he wants to say; just cut that UPenn section part out when you send the same rec to Brown and Stanford :]</p>
<p>Colleges prefer a personalized LOR as opposed to “I recommend ____ to your fine school because ____,” it shows that the teacher actually took the time to out to mention the school. Generic LOR’s might be standard, but personalized letters show more interest, and that the teacher recommends you enough to go “above and beyond” the generic LOR.</p>
<p>Borb: While you theoretically are correct (they might like it to be personally addressed), they are fully aware that most rec letters are copied and used for multiple apps. Your post is rather panic mongering, IMHO.</p>
<p>My experience is that application readers genuinely are looking for your best attributes. To be peeved that a LOR isn’t addressed specifically to the college – that’d be the height of unprofessionalism. They aren’t monstrous ■■■■■■ looking to condemn files because the LOR was written on 35 pound weight paper or that the app was folded too many times or was written in blue in rather than black, etc.</p>
<p>With regards to the degree of personalization–it depends very much on how much you want to trouble the rec writer. For me, I would not trouble the writer to personalize with school name–seriously, what impact is there for the mere addition of one word “Harvard” or “Stanford” etc.</p>
<p>It’s perfectly fine if the rec letter just states “to your university”.</p>
<p>I concur w/fiona. If a student came to me and asked that I personalize 10 LORs, I would roll my eyes and direct him/her to the Xerox machine. And he/she better be darn grateful too.</p>
<p>Requesting this would probably hurt the student in the eyes of the LOR writer, frankly. The level of desperation would be an annoyance.</p>