<p>What exactly makes a recommendation letter strong in the eyes of an admissions committee?</p>
<p>Good question! I wonder what distuinguishes one rec from another? If a professor agrees to write a rec letter, it always is a good letter. Then what is it which makes a letter more special...</p>
<p>This is the question that I've been asking ever since I decided to apply for grad schools, because professors at my school usually write good rec letters for their students. Actually, to be more honest here, they would write best letters.</p>
<p>Probably things like uniqueness of the letter, anything that would make it stand out. What would you look for you if you were calling for a reference for someone for a job? How about for a student wanting to get into graduate school? (What sets that reference apart from all the other great references you would receive? -- because, let's be honest, nobody in their right mind is going to give a poor reference! I know when I've called references as part of hiring people, you can just sort of tell instictively who's really excited about their recommendee and who's doing it more as a duty -- I would think it's about the same in an LOR)
I would also expect that a professor writing a letter that shows they know you well and understands (and supports!) why you want to go to that school and study with that POI (esp. if your LOR writer knows your POI personally!)</p>
<p>Those are my 1 1/2 cents (I'd give 2, but I need to save the other 1/2 to buy my breakfast tomorrow morning!)</p>
<p>"I would rate Person X above people A, B and C, and on par with people D and E" where A-E are people who have done things the admissions committee would find notable. If a professor has a tendency to write equally good recommendation letters to everyone who asks, the recommendation letters become much less useful.</p>
<p>A good rec letter does one thing, and does it well:
It provides EXAMPLES of each assertion made. </p>
<p>If the letter says the student is innovative, provide a detailed EXAMPLE of innovation.
If the letter says the student has distinguished herself above others in her cohort, explain HOW.</p>
<p>That's it.</p>
<p>^ Are you really a professor?...</p>
<p>Yes she is :) I believe her.</p>
<p>Writing a LOR is no different from arguing a court case, ele902, right? Unless you have evidence to back up your assertions, the jury's not going to take you seriously.</p>
<p>ele902,
Yes, I am.</p>
<p>I concur with with the post by Prof X. As one who reads and writes many letters of recommendation for graduate and medical school applications, I also add the following additional feature for an effective letter of rec.</p>
<p>Each point in the LOR documented by an example (per Prof X's post) must relate to the purpose of of the application. For example, if you are applying to a neuroscience research program, it should provide documentation of the skills and drive required for success in this field.</p>
<p>Thus, as an applicant it is extremely helpful if you can provide your letter writer with a a brief summary of the exact type of program(s) you are applying to, why you are applying these programs and what your goals are after you complete the graduate program.<br>
AND....
Sad to say, but I don't always remember very much about each undergraduate who has worked in my lab. Therefore, it is also useful for a student to provide the letter writer a summary of tasks, duties accomplishments that the student completed under the direct or indirect supervision of the letter writer.</p>
<p>All of these supplements will help your referee write a specific letter focused on documenting with concrete examples the skills and accomplishments relevant for successfully becoming part of the applied to graduate program.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies! Makes sense.</p>
<p>I assume that in general positive recommendations don't point out faults of the applicant, right? If there were, I guess, "constructive criticism" in the recommendation letter, would this benefit or detract from the strength? Also, how would this letter compare with one that is all positive?</p>
<p>To be honest, I dislike the LOR portion of the application the most; it's the only area where I have no control over. :D</p>
<p>randomname01,</p>
<p>Actually, letters often include information about the applicant's weaknesses. A letter that does not speak to weaknesses is, while not automatically suspect, often a less effective letter overall.</p>
<p>The best kind of reccommendation is from a professor you did research with. Much weaker is the DWIC (did well in class) recco which does not point to your potential as a researcher.</p>
<p>another question regarding this topic is that as two of my professors have asked me to provide them with a draft version of a recommendation letter (!), what do you think about it ? i mean do uthink it would help or worsen things ? specially noting that i have to write probably "2" different draft versions for two professors which is extremely difficult 4 me. can someone help me out of this ? any suggestions ?</p>
<p>another question, my background is totally engineering, Bs in electrical Eng and Ms in Biomedical eng (bio-electrics), now that i'm applying to a Computational neuroscience program, so u think it would be better to request one of the letters from my medical scholl advisor which was not so involved in details and computational approaches or it would be better to request all of them from the engineering department.</p>
<p>thank so much in advance to your kind responses.</p>
<p>I agree with Professor X, although I am not a professor, I am applying to a doctoral program. One of the Principal Investigators that I work with will be discussing a weakness of mines. In addition, she will discuss how I overcame it and was consistent thereafter. I do not know what her letter consists of because I have not read it but she ran it by me just to make sure I was comfortable with it. She refuses to make people sound perfect when they are not. But some people want to sound perfect. She suggests that you should not make a person sound perfect because it is unreal. It is nice to read that a person was faced with a challenged and how they overcame the obstacle.</p>
<p>What about a LOR from a prof of a grad class? I took a somewhat infamous grad class (said to be the weeder class for biological science PhD programs) my junior year, and the prof offered to write me a LOR when I picked up my final exam. Would such a LOR hold more weight than one from a typical undergrad prof?</p>