<p>I'm a graduating senior and am planning to apply for grad school. I have a question about LORs. My university's career center provides a letter service which stores your letters for five years and you can send them out whenever you need them. I'm kinda considering this since my letter writers might be more available to write letters directly after the school year is over rather than in the fall. However, I'm not sure what exactly needs to go into a LOR for each university's application. My understanding of it is that some schools have specific forms for their own application.</p>
<p>So my question is would getting generic format recommendation letters be appropriate for the future when I actually need them? Thanks!</p>
<p>Recommendations should generally be tailored towards the school/program you’re applying for. Some writers will use information that benefits the program you are applying. </p>
<p>Example 1: John’s applying for a MS in Cellular biology/Microbiology:
</p>
<p>Example 2: John’s other choice is Genetics program:
</p>
<p>The commentary part of what John did in the lab can be important for some programs he applies to, but does not get taken into consideration for others. This is what is meant by the LOR’s can be tailored to the program, unless it’s generic LOR’s, which programs generally might not regard as high.</p>
<p>Generic LOR’s are just stuff about how well a student did in a class, they got an A, studied hard, etc - the kind of letter some professors will copy and paste for every student asking for one.</p>
<p>Also as a quick FYI though, recommendations were ridiculously hard for me to get because most of the professors I wanted recs from were doing research, on sabbatical etc etc. It wouldn’t hurt to have your second choice professors write generic ones, and use them in case of emergencies. I reiterate SECOND CHOICE. It’s always better to get a tailored rec.</p>