<p>well, what can i do? i asked other grad students, postdocs, and research scientists in the lab and they have done the same thing with regards to recs from my advisor. this guy can get me into grad school by himself (in fact, he already has…i don’t even have to submit an application to my home school for the phd degree). he asked me to write the basics and he’ll fill in the rest, so it’s not like it’ll be “in my style” or whatever. if i don’t do this, what’s the guarantee he’ll write the rec in totality? sure it may be unethical, but there’s probably a point at which you have to live with the fact that this kind of thing happens quite often, right?</p>
<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>
<p>I completely disagree ^. It is one thing to provide your writer with a LOR package. It is another to write it yourself.</p>
<p>How can you see it as unethical unless the professor perpetuates a lie that the applicant tells about him/herself?</p>
<p>hate to break it to the people who have been asked to write their own LORs, but not only is it unethical, it will produce a comparatively weak LOR. my recommendation writers have said things about me that i would never have the audacity to say about myself (good things).</p>
<p>as for what makes a “great” LOR, it would be one that comes from a professor with whom you have a close working relationship and a strong learning relationship. by that, i mean that your professor feels like you’ve taught them something, not just that they’ve taught you.</p>
<p>i had one professor tell me i wrote the best research paper he’d read from an undergraduate or masters student in the last 20 years (i was an undergrad at the time). he created a research position for me just so that he and i could collaborate on an article he was writing. another professor, one of the most notoriously hard-assed profs i’ve ever met, actually told me that i was the sort of student that made him feel like being a professor has been worth it. he’s also one of the most stand-up human beings i have the pleasure to know, and he’s gone above and beyond to assist me in my own research because, in his words, he really believes in what i’m doing and what i’m capable of. from my third letter-writer, i got the sense that she considered me to be a strong, insightful student with potential, but nothing as (over-)dramatic as the other two, so from her, i’d classify my LOR as “good” rather than “great.”</p>
<p>those relationships are hard to cultivate, and even LORs from highly recognized profs can’t buy you admission somewhere if your interests don’t fit with the faculty’s strengths. so don’t worry if your letters are “good” or “great.” just stress out over the parts of the application you have some control over.</p>
<p>writing your own letter does not mean that it is going to be the final draft for being sent to the schools…profs are just asking for a template and after you give it to them, they are definitely going to modify things (add positive, unique, personal things about you, remove false points from it) before they send it to the schools. It usually looks completely different from what you give them (from what I have seen). But you have to make sure that they do not send the same template …I see it happening so often in the school where I am workin as a tech right now (top notch school)…</p>
<p>It is because profs ( esp the big names) are so busy with their schedule and when you ask them to write you a letter, they feel comfortable redesigning the template rather than starting it from the very begining…</p>
<p>One of my recommenders ( a pretty big name in her field) told me it is her standard procedure to have students write what they want the letter to say and then she uses that as her jumping off point. She sees it as a good exercise for students to be able to point out their strong points, which is a pretty good skill to have int he grad school process.
But she does rewrite it and uses other information, she doesn’t just skim and sign.</p>
<p>Would someone mind explaining why it’s unethical? Unethical for whom?</p>
<p>I’m still not so sure the original question was answered. A professor who hardly knows you can write a glowing recommendation simply by being good with words. I mean, is the point of a recommendation really to itemize all the research you’ve done with that professor? And if you didn’t have a relationship with that professor beyond taking their courses, then what else can a prof do besides, “He/she is an outstanding student, makes brilliant insight, blah blah blah…”</p>
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<p>I’ll bite, although I’m astounded that this needs to be explained. </p>
<p>Both the student and the professor are engaging in unethical behavior, although the student is in a much more difficult position. I want to clarify that it’s one thing to give your professor your SoP and meet to discuss your goals, what you see as your strengths, etc., and quite another to write the letter itself.</p>
<p>So why it is unethical? Think about what the letter is supposed to be: a statement from a professor that gives his perspective on how you will fare as a graduate student. You supply your side of the story with the SoP; he/she adds a description from the professorial/PI side. If the student writes his own letters, he is fraudulently asserting that this is what Professors A, B, and C think. </p>
<p>As for Mr. Zoo’s comment that a busy prof in a huge department may have 30 letters to write: well, yes. That’s part of the job, to write LORs and to get students into grad school. If he doesn’t know enough about you to write a decent letter, then you are asking the wrong person. </p>
<p>There’s one other factor that I hadn’t considered at first: are these profs who are asking you to write your own recommendations native English speakers?</p>
<p>I understand that it puts you in a difficult position when a prof insists that you write your own letter. But no matter which way you look at it, it is dishonest to misrepresent part of your application package.</p>
<p>^^ i guess my only response to this is, to put it rather bluntly, deal with it.</p>
<p>i don’t think this is that big of a deal. my PI is a native english speaker, he knows me very well, and he’s going to modify the letter according to his own style. i see no problem with this. at least i know i’m going to have one hell of a letter of recommendation from a well-known professor in my field. definitely not unethical, at least in my case.</p>
<p><em>Shrug.</em> Fortunately, I don’t have to deal with it.</p>
<p>I’m sorry, but it definitely is unethical. There is a reason the schools don’t ask students to recommend themselves but require a professor to do that. Common practice or not, that is serious cheating and both you and the professor are betraying the trust of the system.</p>
<p>It’s obviously good for you, given that the mischief is not revealed, in which case you and your recommender could instantly lose much credibility, because once you find how much you can gain from cheating, it is not easy to stop doing that. Cheating tells you value your own personal gain more than that of a system, which means you are less able to resist plagiarizing and backstabbing than most of the people. </p>
<p>I hope you can be happy with your decision, because I sure couldn’t.</p>
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You assume that professors who permit their students to write letters will not take the extra measure to ensure that the final LOR submitted contains nothing the professor doesn’t truly believe or feel. Any professor who indeed doesn’t do this is unethical, yes, but in every other case, your statement is flawed.</p>
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<p>trust me, something like this wouldn’t tarnish my advisor’s reputation. </p>
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<p>if i thought this was cheating then i would be worried (as would the numerous alumni of my laboratory). but it’s not…</p>
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<p>…so i’m going to sleep well tonight.</p>
<p>“You assume that professors who permit their students to write letters will not take the extra measure to ensure that the final LOR submitted contains nothing the professor doesn’t truly believe or feel. Any professor who indeed doesn’t do this is unethical, yes, but in every other case, your statement is flawed.”</p>
<p>This, exactly.</p>
<p>ok guys… after reading the comments… I think there is some misunderstanding among us</p>
<p>there is a difference between students writing a complete letter for themselves (which is a bit unethical), versus students give the professor a sketch/draft, and then professors will go over the letter and modify/make it his/her own based on that.</p>
<p>Most of you who are against this idea is talking about the former case, however I think the latter is what’s going on, it’s a common practice and it’s not unethical, keep in mind you are not allow to send in the letters yourself. Today most of the schools use online LoR system. So the letter will finally leave from your professor’s hand, that being said, unless he is extremely lazy/unresponsible, he will go over the letter you write and make sure he is happy with it.</p>
<p>I have to admit the members of my lab draft all of our own recommendations, then the PI edits and sends them. For the recs I’ve seen, his editing is basically a re-write, but writing the letter ourselves allows us to put in appropriate biographical details (in the same way that handing him a CV would) and to emphasize specific examples of particular traits that he might not remember off-hand.</p>
<p>perhaps it’s a case of different disciplines. i know that in the humanities, students writing their own letters (even if they’re revised by professors) would be considered unethical and in general isn’t done.</p>
<p>but it seems really, really common in the sciences. which… makes me uncomfortable, but if that’s what you guys do, then i guess that’s okay.</p>
<p>don’t you all have to waive your right to read your letter? how can you ethically waive that right if you’ve written the first draft of the letter yourself? and for people who don’t waive the right to see their LORs, universities usually take the recommendations less seriously because they know a professor isn’t going to be ****ty about a student in a letter that kid’s going to see.</p>
<p>It’s not a common practice for science majors. I think it really depends on individual. Profs usually ask for our CVs before writing anything at my school.</p>