<p>to Mom: that poor guy really does not deserve that position. One could not even fake few rec letters? c’mon! There are many ways to go around that, such as asking different people to proofread for you, watch your words when you write them. And finally before you turn those in, take a quick comparison… if he doesn’t have the ability to notice the letters look similar, then he should probably go back to college and start over.</p>
<p>and also Mom, it really isn’t unethical to write your own letters, in some cases it’s even a nice thing to do, because only you know yourself the best. When I was asking my profs for rec letter (two of them were in really good terms with me), I asked politely if they wanted me to make a draft for them, they agreed very happily. Some professors (esp. the big guys), they have very busy schedules, in my opinion it’s waste of their valuable time having them to sit down and come up with a prose from sketch. Giving them some kind of draft just helps them a lot. </p>
<p>And let’s face it… a decent professor probably have 30 letters to write by the end of every year… if you don’t write you own, chances are they will just use the “common version” and change the name for you.</p>