Lack of LOR options (help)

[sh33n]

Finance undergrad from a small U.S Private school. 3.5 GPA. GRE: Quant: 165 Verbal: 163. 

My graduate interests are inter-disciplinary (economics, politics and public policy). Political Economy and more applied economics. 

Regardless of the program I have noticed a glaring hole in my profile. My potential letters of recommendations. My undergrad courses are primarily in finance (derivatives, international finance, investments, etc.) I also took (intro micro and macro, and stats and calc I)  I did well in all my courses but I can think of one professor I did exceptionally well with, the whole course was essentially a semester long project doing investment research for our universities endowment fund. The professor/director explicitly told me I was the best he's seen. My concern is that the recommendation would not be very pertinent to the interests I mentioned above. Unless programs are looking for potential regardless of it is DIRECTLY related to the program I am seeking admissions to? 

 

Aside from that, I do plan to take some courses in economics while I work-full time to bolster my transcript. Is it reasonable to expect to try getting a LOR from a professor when the course is 100% online?

 

I am trying to address what I believe is my biggest weakness so any additional suggestions would be great.

 

Thank you. 

[RyanS]

While the topics of your study are outside of my area, I will say that it's not uncommon for grad applicants to change focus from undergrad to grad. With this in mind, it would make sense that one's referees might be from different areas.  We look at applications and try to judge interest and aptitude and look for how the student's aims line up with the program's goals and objectives. LORs can be one metric of this, but we also look at them for evidence of professionalism. Does it show the effort you put into your studies? Did the prof enjoy working with you? Were you timely with assignments and follow through? Did you go above and beyond? These are important data points. IMO, I don't think it's as big of a hole as it might seem.