<p>Hello,</p>
<p>Most of my schools require 3 recommendations.
2 of mine are doing them online, the other one did his by paper. (He's old-fashioned).
I found out recently one of my schools only required 2 recommendations.
My paper recommender finished all my recommendations pretty quickly. (I was very skeptical.)</p>
<p>I decided not to use his recommendation for my school that only requires 2 recommendations because I know that his is the weakest, and I wanted to know how he did them so fast (within a week). </p>
<p>So I looked at the one he wrote for my 2 recommendation school since I'm not going to mail to his. To my surprise, the checkbox portion of the form was good.
However, he left the part about now write your paragraph here about the student empty.
Yikes.</p>
<p>Now, I'm a bit worried. I've already mailed in his paper recs to the other schools. I wonder if he did the same thing for my other schools too. I'll admit that on this school's form it was hard to see the question about writing a paragraph because they did not leave any room for it. The other schools' form left a space to write in a recommendation...so I'm praying that he saw that and wrote something about me. </p>
<p>I wish that there was a way I could ask him if he did or not. But I can't since I waived my right.</p>
<p>Do you think the schools will contact him asking him for the rest of the recommendation?</p>
<p>Will this look bad on me? Did he just ruin my chances at grad school?</p>
<p>If my other 2 lor online are strong (with everything filled out) and since this 3rd paper one had good check marks on the checkboxes (despite missing a written rec), do you think it will be okay?</p>
<p>I don't think I'll be able to find another recommender by January 1 to make up for it. </p>
<p>Worse case scenario, I'm hoping I'm getting into this school that only wanted 2 recommendations. But I hate feeling like I'm wasting my time working on these essays for these other 4 schools.</p>
<p>
Yes.</p>
<p>
If the checkbox options your recommender chose are good, then I doubt the written portion of the recommendation will have been poor or purposefully left out.</p>
<p>Bottom line, I’m sure graduate schools would mention if the LOR’s written statement is missing. The LOR would be incomplete and cannot be considered without it, and this is not your fault.</p>
<p>you waived your right to see your LOR and opened it anyway? dude, you can’t ask your prof or the grad schools if he wrote a paragraph about you. either will put you in a difficult situation ethically that may have real repercussions, depending upon how seriously schools take this violation.</p>
<p>if you know that prof’s letters were going to be your weakest, then don’t worry that much. a lot of grad students have weak third letters and still make it into graduate school.</p>
<p>Violation? The only thing waiving your right means is that you cannot request to view the letter on file at the graduate school.</p>
<p>Kryptonsa36 is correct. Obviously, you can’t open a sealed letter, but if a professor shows you a copy of the recommendations, I don’t think there’s any harm in reading them. One of my professors gave me a copy of the LOR he sent. Now, if I later get accepted to any of those schools, I can’t ask to see the letters outright, but since the professor gave me a copy ahead of time, it doesn’t really matter.</p>
<p>To the OP - I think you’re fine. As others have said, the schools will likely contact the professor if they have any issues with his rec.</p>
<p>actually, I dispute the point that schools will contact the LOR writer. having served on multiple admission committees, we simply do not have the time! The amount of effort and care expended by the LOR writer is used as a measure of their enthusiasm for the candidate. </p>
<p>however, one incomplete reference is unlikely to cause harm if other LOR’s are positive</p>
<p>yes, i agree that it is not a violation if your LOR writer provides you with a copy of the letter sent. but opening the sealed letter IS the violation, because the LOR writer did not choose to inform you of the letter’s contents. they wrote it with the assumption that you wouldn’t see it. if they want to show you, fine. but if they don’t volunteer the letter and you open it anyway, that could cause waves.</p>