LOR from industry instead of academia

[concept-72]

Hi all,

I've been working in the tech industry for the past 6 years and now I want to transition back to academia, as I am applying to grad school to Computational Neuroscience programs.

I am considering giving 3 LOR from my managers from different companies. Those will come from my startup CEO and other managers that have PhDs but they were not professors. Also, I haven't done much research during my work and no papers published.

Should I include a LOR from my thesis professor from my Bachelors from 6 years ago? Or is that too old? I'm not sure if that LOR will be as positive as one from my managers

 

Thanks!

[DRMF]

14 hours ago, concept-72 said:

Should I include a LOR from my thesis professor from my Bachelors from 6 years ago?

I'd say you should, though you don't have to use that letter for every school you apply to. (It's always good to have a 4th alternative rec letter anyway.)

Some programs' app portals will explicitly state that at least 1 letter needs to be from faculty; some may not care at all. The tricky ones are those that actually strongly prefer a letter from a professor but doesn't make it clear - I recommend contacting each program's director to get a sense of what they want to see.

[RyanS]

+1DRMF.  The reason programs want LOR from faculty is because they want to know how you do as a student. Being a student is a little different than being an employee, even though there are qualities of professionalism that overlap.