<p>I was wondering, what would be better: a decent LOR from a professor or an amazing LOR from someone who's not a professor. </p>
<p>I still have some time to get to know my professors, so perhaps I can get 3 good LORs all from professors. But you never know. And I know for a fact this one person can write me an incredibly great recommendation letter. He's the National Vice President of my (social) fraternity, one of the best speakers/debaters I've ever seen and he knows me really/is really impressed with what I've done for the fraternity.</p>
<p>For research programs, it is generally expected that your writers will be either professors or professionals in your current field. Letters from social groups will be strongly discounted.</p>
<p>Definitely don’t get one from someone who can’t attest to your research abilities–or at least academic abilities that relate to your future area of study.</p>
<p>Welles10,
A letter from a current PhD student who taught you in a class or supervised you in a lab will sometimes do, but such a source for a letter is very far from optimal. PhD students don’t yet have much of a basis of comparison from which to rank/measure/judge undergraduate students. Most also don’t know how to write proper rec letters yet.</p>
<p>And to the OP. Absolutely not; your fraternity VP is not a proper source for a letter. Letters of rec must testify to your academic abilities. Ask your professors.</p>
<p>Sorry to the OP for trying to hijack his/her thread, but…</p>
<p>What do you do when requesting a LOR from a supervisor is likely to create a hostile work environment? I know I can definitely get one of my LOR’s from a professor, but I would like to get a second from a supervisor at work. However, we are a fairly small office (approx. 50 people) and much like high school, there are cliques. Right now I am on good terms with most of the supervisors/management in my dept. (and a couple other depts.), but I am concerned if I ask one of them to write me a LOR for a school out of state that they will quickly put two and two together and realize I’m looking for a way to leave. If they know that even just a few months in advance of the notification date, I strongly feel like those months will become pure hell. I currently feel like I have the respect of the management since they tend to trust me to perform work/handle cases that employees with seniority do not handle, but I’ve seen how quickly that can change.</p>
<p>when I co-op’ed at GE’s R&D department, my manager (who was a PHD) wrote me a LoR and it came in extremely useful for my current PhD position, because it was the same field.</p>
<p>I believe the school’s website says it clearly enough for you, it’s preferred to be a professor, “or someone can comment on your research ability”, you can make this decision yourself.</p>
<p>Wahoogrl, then it doesn’t sound as though anyone will write you a decent LOR. If they are going to take it out on you at the workplace, imagine what they might write when you can’t ever see it.</p>
<p>Wahoogirl, I understand that some organizations do take on a high school mentality but you still might find that management is used to employee turnover (especially for people in their early 20’s) and it won’t be such a surprise that you might aspire to something better than your entry level job. You very well could find that the managers will handle this like professionals and give you a letter of recommendation that reflects your performance.</p>
<p>My experience being accepted into PhD programs has been that it is OK to use supervisors from work as long as they have enough interaction with you to significantly comment on your relavent research ability. If you have been out of school for a while, you still need at least one professor though.</p>
<p>As to some of the questions here. Definite “NO” on a fraternity reference for a research program. Many graduate schools will say in their literature that a character reference is given much less weight. That is all the fraternity reference would be. I would also be hesitant to ask a personel manager for a reference. From my experience the personel manager may be the manager of your engineering dept, but thier real job is to manage budgets, salaries, hire, and do the dirty work of firing based on input of real engineers or company needs. Usually, somebody like this is almost never a good letter of reference for a PhD program. </p>
<p>Instead, I would find a more technical supervisor at work to give the reference. This reference doesn’t need to be a manager. These technical supervisors who can comment on your research ability are fine references for a PhD program.</p>
<p>But what if you’re working in a field that has no (or very little) relation to the grad programs to which you’re applying? Suppose I’ve worked retail for a number (too many) of years and have a healthy employee-supervisor relationship with my managers. Would their recommendations mean anything to an admissions committee? Or would it depend on the type of program I’m applying for?</p>
<p>Understanding that some people change fields between undergrad and grad, it is not always possible to have LOR’s from people in your prospective field. If they are in your desired field, it helps a lot but is not crucial. That having been said, I would rank writers as follows:</p>
<p>1) Professors under whom you did research
2) Professors with whom you have a substantial academic history
3) Non-academic researchers with whom you did research
4) Professors who can say something really good about you
5) Managers / senior professionals in your degree-requiring field
30) Character references
90) Managers in a non-degree-requiring field</p>
<p>Where possible you want at least one each of research and academic references. In general, I would avoid like the plague my last two possibilities - they are essentially meaningless.</p>