The Thousand Different Little Sheets that Accompany a Recommendation

[edelossantos17]

When someone is doing a recommendation online, these seem to be part of the overall process. When doing it through mail, I think it has been much easier around the Christmas season to just send the requisite addresses to a professor way ahead of time and to have the prof label clearly on the envelope "RE: such and such's Ph.d. Application in such subject." But now that I've been doing the applications themselves online, I'm finding that when I say the recommenders have/will have mailed them, a new screen pops up and provides a specified recommendation sheet, along with specific questions; where they would put us in comparison to other students they've had, etc. Seriously, if the dept. doesn't specifically mention these sheets on their website, should we be too worried that they're not being submitted by the professors? Honestly, they're a pain in the ass for students and recommenders alike.

[Alyanumbers]

When someone is doing a recommendation online, these seem to be part of the overall process. When doing it through mail, I think it has been much easier around the Christmas season to just send the requisite addresses to a professor way ahead of time and to have the prof label clearly on the envelope "RE: such and such's Ph.d. Application in such subject." But now that I've been doing the applications themselves online, I'm finding that when I say the recommenders have/will have mailed them, a new screen pops up and provides a specified recommendation sheet, along with specific questions; where they would put us in comparison to other students they've had, etc. Seriously, if the dept. doesn't specifically mention these sheets on their website, should we be too worried that they're not being submitted by the professors? Honestly, they're a pain in the ass for students and recommenders alike.

I've totally ignored these for the apps where I'm sending paper LoRs. My profs had already written an LoR that they used for the online process, and I just asked them to print them on letterheaded paper and get them stamped by the dean. I'm trying to make things simple and convenient for them; I'm not about to ask them to answer yet another questionnaire about me.

[beanbagchairs]

Argh.. hate those extra forms...

Asking (multiple) recommendations are hard enough.. let alone asking them to fill these extra bits...

profs are, uh oh, extremely busy

I did not submit these forms for some of my apps.. others. I did...

Edited December 26, 2010 by shashakoe