nisf Posted October 20, 2010 Share Posted October 20, 2010 Hi, I'm planning on applying to a Master's Program in General Psychology and have 2 possible letters of recommendation from professors but I am struggling to come up with a third. While I'm aware that professors hold more sway over admissions than supervisors, I have a sort-of dilemma on my hands: I was assigned an independent research project my junior year with one professor for a semester, but he was a very busy "superstar" professor who frequently forgot my name and canceled meetings with me. Although I received high marks on the project, we met a total 3 times over the semester. Add that to the fact that it has been 2 years since the project and I took a year off after school, and I have some doubts he remembers who I am and what my project was about. While I doubt he'd refuse to write me an LOR, I have less faith in his ability to write me a good, personalized LOR. On the other hand, I also worked as a research assistant for a year in another professor's laboratory as an undergrad, with a Ph.D candidate as my supervisor. She's very familiar with my particular strengths as a researcher and acknowledged my contributions in her articles published in the Journal of Social and Behavioral Psychology, and has demonstrated a willingness to act as a reference. However, she is still a Ph.D candidate, not a professor, so I am not sure if that would look bad on my grad school application. Any suggestions? Eddy 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eucalyptus Posted October 21, 2010 Share Posted October 21, 2010 Maybe consider getting a letter from your PhD-candidate-supervisor, but co-signed or co-written by the professor in charge of the lab? This is done fairly often when someone's primary advisor is a grad student or post-doc, but there's a prof overseeing the lab. Best of both worlds! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eddy Posted October 24, 2010 Share Posted October 24, 2010 Hi, I'm planning on applying to a Master's Program in General Psychology and have 2 possible letters of recommendation from professors but I am struggling to come up with a third. While I'm aware that professors hold more sway over admissions than supervisors, I have a sort-of dilemma on my hands: I was assigned an independent research project my junior year with one professor for a semester, but he was a very busy "superstar" professor who frequently forgot my name and canceled meetings with me. Although I received high marks on the project, we met a total 3 times over the semester. Add that to the fact that it has been 2 years since the project and I took a year off after school, and I have some doubts he remembers who I am and what my project was about. While I doubt he'd refuse to write me an LOR, I have less faith in his ability to write me a good, personalized LOR. On the other hand, I also worked as a research assistant for a year in another professor's laboratory as an undergrad, with a Ph.D candidate as my supervisor. She's very familiar with my particular strengths as a researcher and acknowledged my contributions in her articles published in the Journal of Social and Behavioral Psychology, and has demonstrated a willingness to act as a reference. However, she is still a Ph.D candidate, not a professor, so I am not sure if that would look bad on my grad school application. Any suggestions? I asked a similar question to my thesis supervisor (who I have worked closely with her for more than 2 years now) and she said its is still better to have a reference from a professor than any Grad student. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now