Question about Experience Pro

[suhasnans]

Dear all,

My hope is that you are feeling great today.

As simple as my question can be, it will definitely help me in choosing my recommenders.

Indeed, under HKS requirements, if you have less than two years of full-time work, they strongly suggest you to pick two academic recommenders and one professional. So here come my question: How do we count the number of year of professional experience? Is until the application deadline date? Is it until the date specified in the recommendation letters (considering that they are all written at the date)? Or is it until Fall 2011?

Why I am asking that question: Because if it is until Fall 2011, I can use two professional letter of recommendations since they are way more stronger than my academic recommendations.

That's it for now.

Thank you in advance for your time and expertise.

Take care

[fuzzylogician]

Well, if the person writing your recommendation letter only knows you for a year now, that seems like the relevant information. The fact that they will continue working with you later on doesn't really help in the sense that their opinion of you can only be based on the year that they have known you so far, obviously not on the future year to come.

I gather that you have two strong professional and only one strong academic one. Would it be possible for you to submit a fourth letter -- have two academic letters and two professional ones? That way you stick to the requirements but still get to submit both of your strong letters. Some programs have a policy about this, but in most cases it'd be best to contact each program and ask.

Edited October 16, 2010 by fuzzylogician

[adaptations]

It seems to me that if your professional LORs are going to be much stronger than the academic letters, than you should go with two professional LORs. I could be wrong, but given it is a professional program, that seems logical to me. Plus, I like fuzzylogician's suggestion of adding a fourth if you can.

[FrenchMess]

Hey,

It's a tough call since we are not allowed to put an additionnal LOR in HKS application. If I were you, I would focus on making up for my weaknesses. You told in a previous post that your weaknesses were your low GMAT score and your academic background with a low GPA. They will certainly pay attention to that, so here is your choice : a professional LOR to highlight your strenghts or an academic LOR to put your academic backgound in context like "she had other valuable qualities to bring to the class" or "she worked a lot after school and still got honorable results". I don't know but if you have a good connection with your professor, one might accept to say nice things about you.

Again tough call. It all depends on how important you think is your academic weakness in your application. I have a friend enrolled in HKS right now, she told me not to neglict the academic background, it was her advice.

Good luck (and aren't you freazing as much as I am?? What's with Paris weather these days Gooooood!)

[suhasnans]

<br />Hey,<br /><br />It's a tough call since we are not allowed to put an additionnal LOR in HKS application. If I were you, I would focus on making up for my weaknesses. You told in a previous post that your weaknesses were your low GMAT score and your academic background  with a low GPA. They will certainly pay attention to that, so here is your choice : a professional LOR to highlight your strenghts or an academic LOR to put your academic backgound in context like &quot;she had other valuable qualities to bring to the class&quot; or &quot;she worked a lot after school and still got honorable results&quot;. I don't know but if you have a good connection with your professor, one might accept to say nice things about you.<br />Again tough call. It all depends on how important you think is your academic weakness in your application. I have a friend enrolled in HKS right now, she told me not to neglict the academic background, it was her advice.<br /><br />Good luck (and aren't you freazing as much as I am?? What's with Paris weather these days Gooooood!)<br />

<br /><br /><br />

Ok thank you all for your recommendations. I will so use 2 academic LORs and 1 professional. My professional strengths are anyway highlighted in my SOP and CV. Moreover, I just got approval from two professors to recommend me (1 in US and 1 in France). Just calculated my GPA according to international grading system and it seems that my GPA is not that bad BsC (3), BA (3.5), Master (3.73).

If you need any help on your side, just contact me. I will be glad to contribute. This forum rocks.

@FrenchMess: I don't know about the weather in Paris right now since I am in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. ahahah Here it is so hot, maybe too hot sometimes. ahah

Take care guys