<p>So I have 2 of my references set up (both PI's from labs I've worked in) and for the 3rd I wanted to ask a TA who taught me, because she is quite aware of my academic abilities. She is more than happy to do it, but recommended that I ask the course coordinator to write it because that way it would be from a professor.</p>
<p>In my opinion, the TA would write the better letter and would say more good things about me. So which do I choose? TA for the better letter, or prof for the title?</p>
<p>The point of a letter of reference is not that it says something good about you - anyone can provide that. The point is that one peer is giving another their privileged opinion on you. Even if the letter just says “habman6 got an A in my class and I don’t remember anything else” it will be better received than the most glowing letter your TA could write. What they really want is to know that someone just like them (i.e. a professor) thinks you are a good pick for a grad student.</p>
<p>Besides, it is a 3rd LOR - if the first 2 are good they won’t care that much what it says.</p>
<p>Not that one of those options would be so much more desirable than the other, but a glowing letter from a TA most certainly would not be viewed as worse than a letter from a professor that truly says only “So-and-so is competent as evidenced by his/her A in my class.” and nothing else.</p>
<p>That being said, a letter from a TA is shorting the admissions committee of what they want to see. The best bet by far is to see if the professor can write you a letter, but with input from the TA (perhaps a co-sign), so that the LOR actually has substance.</p>
<p>Ask the TA to write up an evidence-based report of your performance in the class, and give that to the professor. Then the professor will have the information s/he needs to write a strong letter.</p>
<p>TAs are never suitable letter-writers. Their letters do not carry sufficient weight in the admissions process.</p>
<p>This question has come up several times recently, and the answer is always the same: graduate students are never appropriate letter writers for graduate admissions. </p>
<p>You aren’t applying for a job where character references are requested. The LOR is meant to evaluate you as a future scholar and researcher. Someone who is still in an academic apprentice role cannot possibly offer good insight about what it takes to succeed in the profession. Graduate school is not about being a good student; it is about having the right kind of mind and passion for the material.</p>
<p>what if I included a letter from a grad student in addition to the minimum number of letters they require, where the minimum number is all from profs/employers?</p>
<p>ilikedrit - I would not include the extra letter. It suggests that you lack confidence in your professors’ opinions, and would at best be disregarded. The best thing you can do is get a letter from the grad student’s advisor - they can collaborate on the letter, or the grad student could write but have the advisor submit it, or something along those lines.</p>
<p>Too late now, grad student’s already submitted it and I can’t delete it.</p>
<p>The whole letter thing seems pretty dumb to be honest. Everyone knows most letters are shams, including the adcomms, so I don’t get what the point of it is.</p>
<p>Shams? The average letter of recommendation may be overwhelmingly positive, but if it’s not a lie, it will have quite a bit of weight in the admissions decision.</p>
<p>^ That’s the point. Most letters are overwhelmingly positive to the degree of significant exaggeration, and everyone realizes that most letters are significantly exaggerated. However, the true degree of exaggeration is unknown. The degree of exaggeration could be 0 but the extreme likelihood is that it is a fair amount higher than 0. Both this fact and the uncertainty regarding the level of exaggeration should realistically render LORs impractical in the eyes of adcomms, yet they continue using them.</p>
<p>I disagree. Some parts may be exaggerated, but I don’t think my LOR writers will write anything about me that is not true. The thing is, it is all in HOW things are stated and even MORE importantly, what is NOT stated. Believe me, people know how to make something look positive, when really, it is not very positive at all. Furthermore, a lot of times profs are writing these letters and they will be read by people who know them, especially if you are applying in the same subfield, and they don’t want to look bad either. They don’t want to recommend someone who they don’t think is up to par to people they actually know.</p>
<p>I think a letter from a grad student isn’t just a neutral add-on, it is a huge negative.</p>
<p>I have to question how you can speak with such authority about “knowing” the above. Letters of recommendation are extremely important; I don’t know how you can maintain otherwise. Where did you hear that they are not? Certainly not from a professor.</p>
<p>Professors will not write undeserved glowing recommendations because they are communicating with their colleagues. You may think that everyone gets overwhelmingly positive LORs, but you’d be wrong. While a professor might not say directly that a student is mediocre or arrogant or lacks creativity, he can communicate it in other ways. Everyone pretty much knows the shorthand for stuff like that.</p>
<p>MWFN is precisely correct. I’ve read hundreds of letters of recommendation, and the majority are NOT puffery. I know my colleagues, and they know me, and their reputations would be damaged if they wrote letters that turned out to be falsifications or exaggerations.</p>
<p>And as MWFN has stated, there are many, many ways to communicate reservations about a student’s suitability for my program, and professors know perfectly well how to do that.</p>
<p>How the hell do so many of you guys know professors who coincidentally have connections with other professors at the same exact schools you apply to? That’s so improbable. I’ve researched all of the professors I’ve taken, and none of them have any connections with any of the professors at the schools I am applying to. There can only be so many connections in this world. It’s almost as if you applied to a specific undergrad to take classes with specific professors and kissed their ***es just to get into a specific graduate school.</p>
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<p>Lol, “huge negative” is pushing it, although I’m guessing that was a joke. Just so we get this clear for anyone who’s worrying about this: letters from graduate students aren’t taken as seriously as letters from professors, but that doesn’t imply they do not have a sufficient amount of weight. Graduate students are only a step away from a professor, have gone through enough of the same work that professors do, and certainly can have sufficient insight on whether one has what it takes to succeed in graduate school. Their opinion is not as authoritative as a professor’s, but it’s enough. They’re not mentally handicapped people for Pete’s sake. ~ This being learned from my interviews with multiple academic departments and advisors.</p>
<p>Of my writers, at least one had a personal connection at each of the three schools to which I applied - this was the result of a certain amount of good fortune on my part, and of some careful decisions in selecting my writers.</p>
<p>More than that, my undergraduate studies were in the same specialty as my graduate studies - as a result, my professors were in the same conferences and publications as my prospective advisors. Even when they did not know each other personally, they were well known by reputation.</p>
<p>Oh, and no ass-kissing was involved.</p>
<p>I do not think that grad student letters are a huge negative by themselves, but I have never heard a single professor list them as a positive. While they are only “one step away” it is a very big and significant step, and since most writers are NOT brand-new professors there is usually a second step comprising years or decades of experience and reputation. A grad student lacks all of that. Using one as a required writer makes it look as if you did not really know many professors - unfortunate but it happens. Using one as an extra writer makes it look like you do not expect good things from your professors.</p>
<p>the world of academia is very small-- the professors who wrote my LORs were well known by every school that I applied to-- some schools knew one better than another, but all of them had personal relationships with the faculty at other schools. You wouldn’t necessarily know it from researching their website- it comes from working in similar fields and attending conferences, etc. It definitely makes a big difference.</p>
What makes you think the connections are that obvious? When I was discussed schools with two of my letter writers, they both told me to feel free to run faculty names by them, as they “know almost everyone there.”</p>
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Except that step might as well be a mile high. There are certainly graduate students who are professor-level prolific and destined to become renowned in their fields, but how can you expect graduate admissions committee members to know that your letter writer is one of them? As far as they are concerned, your graduate student letter writer could be kicked out of his/her graduate program tomorrow for sheer ineptitude - how can graduate schools approach an LOR from a graduate student with anything but extreme reservation?</p>
<p>Given only the following choices, which would you choose:
(i) a glowing letter from a graduate student
(ii) a flat or negative letter from a professor</p>
<p>Example of what I mean by “flat”:</p>
<p>Dear Sir/Madam,</p>
<p>[applicant] attended [course] and received a grade of [grade]. I recommend [applicant] to your program.</p>
<p>Sincerely,
[prof]</p>
<p>Countless authoritative sources say a flat letter definitely damages one chances. Yet I have not found any authoritative sources say that a positive letter from a graduate student is damaging, only that it may not have as much weight.</p>
<p>Let’s measure the aggregate strength of the letters on a point scale. Positive letter from a professor is +1, positive letter from a graduate student is 0, and flat letter from a professor is -1. Let’s suppose the minimum number of letters required is 2 and that I send 2 letters in.</p>
<p>Scenario 1: Positive letter from a professor & positive letter from a graduate student = 1+0 = 1
Scenario 2: Positive letter from a professor and flat letter from a professor = 1-1 = 0.</p>
<p>Since 1 > 0, it appears that scenario 1 is better than scenario 2. Hence, a positive letter from a graduate student is better than a flat letter from a professor.</p>
<p>I present this scenario to you because these are the only choices I believe I currently have. Now which would you choose?</p>