<p>As a future biomedical sciences PhD candidate, I'm wondering if it's acceptable to submit an LOR from my freshman year PI. Obviously you want people you've worked with recently to write, but I have a bit of unique situation.</p>
<p>I transferred after my freshman year, after working for five months with an associate professor at my first school. She wrote me an LOR for my transfer apps (which ended up extremely successfully), and I've read the letter; it's amazing. I'd really like to use it for grad school apps, because I feel that it portrays me both as a great researcher and person. This is also the lab where I've had the most success. She used my data in a publication-- I wasn't an author, but I was thanked in the acknowledgements (hopefully that counts for something?).</p>
<p>At the moment, I'm not really sure who else I'll get recs from (I have about a few years until I want to apply). I'll certainly be working on it in coming semesters, but I want to know if this letter is an option just in case.</p>
<p>I'm also currently in a lab at my new school, but they really didn't give me a project of my own to do. I'm just helping out a grad student, which isn't ideal, but I was kind of stuck there with nothing else to do for the summer, so there you go. I'm planning on switching into a new lab this fall.</p>
<p>Yes, this person sounds like an excellent person to write a LoR. You’ll need three recommendation letters. This letter also shows that you’ve had the motivation to do research from the start.</p>
<p>Good for you for thinking about LOR writers ahead of time. My concern with this letter is that you have read it – and you usually have to check a box if you have/have not had the opportunity to review (read) the LOR (something like ‘I waive my right to review the LOR’ – aka I am not reading the letter nor do I know what it says). LORs tend to have more weight if you waived your right to read it (I think the reviewers tend to trust LORs more if the applicant says they have never seen it) and usually you are strongly encouraged to waive your right. Just something to think about.</p>
<p>I have read a version of the letter that she tailored for a marine veterinary internship during my sophomore year. I would assume that she would re-tailor it for graduate school admissions; if this is the case, would it be safe to tell schools that I have not read it?</p>
<p>A small percentage of professors show their LOR to their students. Because this is voluntary, universities don’t care that this happens. When you sign the waiver on your application form, you provide your LOR writers the privacy to say what they want, without your being able to find out what they wrote; however, it does not prevent the LOR writer from showing the letter to you.</p>
<p>The checkbox in question concerns your right to look at the letter after it has been submitted (assuming the school keeps them, which most of them don’t), not whether you have seen it before. It’s the same waiver as the one in the Common Application used to apply for colleges.</p>
<p>Thanks Mom and None for making that clear – I wasn’t sure on that, but I didn’t want to OP to get caught with the ‘waiving right to review’ thing come application time.</p>
<p>As an addendum, when should I ask my current PI for letter? I’m not planning to work in his lab past August-- better to ask at the end of the summer or wait until I actually need the letter? This is a delicate situation because I’m not sure if he’ll write it or if he’ll have the grad student that I was mainly working with write it. I’ve been extremely helpful to the grad student, but I never had my own project and only helped him with his dissertation research. Therefore, I would rather the PI write it but I’m worried that he won’t remember me by the time next spring rolls around (really busy guy).</p>