<p>I read on the forums of people having "great recs" but would someone care to elaborate on what makes a good rec from a GREAT one?</p>
<p>I've read the material given to me by Kaplan's "Get Into Grad School" book, and it was basic common sense: pick a prof that knows you and your abilities, etc etc. (nothing has changed from when we were in high school.)</p>
<p>But shouldn't grad school be a tad harder than that? This being CollegeConfidential, I suspect most of the members on the forums are probably more "uptight" about gradschool than most applicants. That being said... probably a majority of applicants think their recommendations are of the 99.99 percentile. </p>
<p>Therefore, is a rec from a professor that had you for 3 separate classes/knows you very well/you were in the top 10% in each of the classes good? or just average (seeing that everyone will pick a professor that is similar to what I stated above)</p>
<p>I also always wonder when people say they will have “amazing” RECs. If everyone’s is amazing or excellent or strong… then it pretty much now makes that average. I find it weird in general when people comment on their own LORs unless they have actually read them and read other LORs of accepted/rejected applicants.</p>
<p>well this one is pretty easy, an “average RL” would be something like XXX students is hardworking, puts good effort on coursework, shows strong effort, good grades, good communication/writing skills, etc, you know, the usual stuff</p>
<p>a “GREAT” RL would be something jumps out of the paper and catches the reader’s eye, it’s something only fits yourself and usually they can tell it’s written by the professors (rather than you wrote for yourself). </p>
<p>Example? I remember my friend who was applying for med school, she showed me the admission page of the program she wanted to get in the most (top in the country), I took a quick browse, under the LoR requirement, it said clearly "We are looking for something like ‘He/She is the best student I have seen at XXX University in the past 20 years’. " I think it’s very cocky attitude … but you get the idea :)</p>
<p>A “great” rec might be from a professor that knows you personally, whom you have done research for AND have taken class(es) from–someone who can evaluate you (highly!) relative to your peers and perhaps more importantly, your research potential. “Amazing” might mean that this professor is well-known in his or her field. Given the sort of people that seem to gravitate towards CC I’m not surprised that many on this site have gotten (or, rather, think they’ve gotten) amazing letters. </p>
<p>I would think an “average” rec letter would be from a professor you’ve gotten to know a little bit, whom you have taken classes from (of course, getting A’s). So, yes, what you’re describing is probably average depending on your field and where you apply.</p>
<p>I hate that the implication is that being “average”, or as Mr.Zoo said “hardworking, puts good effort on coursework, shows strong effort, good grades, good communication/writing skills, etc, you know, the usual stuff” is not good enough. A lot of people are this, but you know, a lot are not. A lot are not hardworking, don’t have good grades or communication skills, don’t get along well, don’t put in a lot of effort. Those words… what you wrote as “the usual stuff” are now meaningless.</p>
<p>I suspect that great recs contain a lot of nice anecdotal evidence regarding your capacity to do good research (the less generic the better). Of course, with top grad schools, lots of students have 1-3 of these, so then I also suspect that these “great” recs then become comparatively average and it becomes more about fit and your essays and whatnot (and luck).</p>
<p>Mr. Zoo: I don’t know if by “jumps off the page” you’re referring to the quality of the prose or not. If you are, I don’t think that matters at all; no one’s going to penalize you if your PI isn’t a great writer.</p>
<p>safetypin00: I hear what you’re saying about how that should not be the average rec; however, would a student really go to a professor that does not know them or like them to ask for one? </p>
<p>My original post’s intent was that, if everyone goes to their favorite professor that adores them, wouldn’t that kind of rec be the average?</p>
<p>On the reverse, what if you had a professor that hated your guts but you did extremely well and thus you earned his/her respect? If I was handling admissions and I read, “I did not agree with the points Mr. X made in class, but I respect his method of argument, etc etc,” – to me that seems way better than a professor saying, “Mr. Y is the greatest student I’ve ever had in my career.” Mr. Y would seem that he was just more able to suck up than Mr. X.</p>
<p>No one should be able to tell how good their LORs are – unless the prof shows it to you, which usually doesn’t happen. Even if a prof says to your face, “You’re better than my second year grad students,” it doesn’t mean that he’ll put it in the LOR.</p>
<p>And yes, it does matter than the recommender knows how to write well. A great LOR will be coherent, precise, and admiring. A generic LOR from a famous researcher will mean nothing next to one written by a no-name who outlines exactly why the student is exceptional. Of course, a detailed, glowing LOR from a famous researcher is as good as it gets.</p>
<p>@safetypin: I agree a lot of students do not fit in those nice words, but consider this–when a prof agrees to writes you LoR, and assume he is in decent terms with you, he wont put in any harsh comments (for the MOST cases), therefore he will try to think of your strengths and write a letter for you. More likely–he will open up the LoR he wrote before, and make modifications based on that. That’s what I mean by “average”, a very common version, the people who read hundreds of LoRs should be able to smell this kind of letters easy—maybe Mom can tell us more about this</p>
<p>@sarbruis: I thought my example is pretty good, “the best student I’ve seen at XXX University in the past 20 years” would be something jumps out of the page. Or something like “he has published 3 papers and made XXX contribution in my lab” And no I do not mean the quality of the prose, keep in mind there are lot of succesful/famous professors are not native English speakers.</p>
<p>I know of students who asked a professor for a “good recommendation” and that professor said “you should ask someone else, but if you really want, I"ll write you one” I suspect if this student had persisted, they would have gotten a very weakly “good” rec. I had the luck of seeing all 3 of my LOR’s (each prof sent them to me without me asking) and each one used words like “amazing astounding best exceptional tremendous” etc. Whereas a merely “good” rec would use words like, well, “good strong capable” etc. </p>
<p>No one is ever (well, if they’re a moral person) write a BAD rec, but there’s surely a diff between “good” and “gonna get you in”. Also, I’m not sure that a prof who you’ve only ever had classes with (even if it was several) is the perfect person to ask. It varies by field, but it biomedsci, I think it’s more ideal to get letters from PI’s who you’ve actually worked with rather than merely instructors who graded you.</p>
<p>People certainly would write bad letters. A bad letter to me isn’t about what it says but what it DOESN’T say. You don’t want to recommend someone you know might not be up to par to your colleagues, imo.</p>
<p>this is a particularly timely question as my advisor just told me to write my own recommendation along the lines of “describe your project a little bit, your contributions, your talent, that you’re the top 5% of students, etc., then send it to me and i’ll customize it.” does anyone have a sample of a great LOR that i can use?</p>
<p>is it really unethical? i was under the impression that this sort of thing was rather standard…not just for grad school but also for postdocs, etc. either way, i guess i’m not complaining :-)</p>
<p>Here’s a true story: a faculty candidate applying for a coveted position had submitted the requisite letters of recommendation. Two of the letters had not only similar styles but also almost identical wording in places. That candidate had been winnowed down to the final two before the committee noticed the similarity. He was not offered the job on this basis alone.</p>
<p>Do you really think you can hide your writing style, especially since they will be reading your SoP?</p>
<p>^ Exactly. It is not that I personally think it is unethical, I don’t know, it seems like too strong of a word, but I think it is lazy on the part of the PI. I am glad I haven’t been asked to do that because, frankly, I don’t and can’t comment on my own potential and performance. How do I know where I stand, really? Besides, I think profs know much better how to write LORs, what they should and shouldn’t contain and I think as momwaitingfornew pointed out, it would be too similar to your writing. That would be my main concern… I think you can tell.</p>
<p>Unethical is not too strong a term for writing one’s own recommendation. Laziness on the part of the professor is certainly a contributor, but remains no excuse for such an appalling breach of ethics. As Momwaitingfornew explained, irregularities in letters of rec can – and do – sink applications.</p>