Unusual history and 5+ years out of school

[sollee]

I'm preparing to apply for graduate programs and am finding myself a little overwhelmed at the thought of finding three people to write Letters of Recommendation for me (some programs only require two, which I can probably manage). A little bit of history:

I attended a very unusual college for my first two years, where we enrolled in school year-round but alternated academic semesters with periods of internships. This has done great things for my resume, but meant I didn't have many ongoing relationships with professors.

I then transferred to a larger university for my second two years and graduated with an excellent GPA and plenty of activities, but was never given a proper advisor. I suppose I must have had one who ultimately signed off on my degree, but we were never able to meet so I don't have anyone from that school who could speak much to my academic abilities.

To add to all of that, I've been out of school for over five years now, and in those five years have spent two of them working abroad (for employers who do not speak enough English to provide a recommendation), two years in the hospital, and now a year in my current position.

My question is two-fold:

1) My plan is to get my current supervisors to write me LoR for Master's programs, because I suspect I will have a better chance at getting into a PhD program if I have more recent academic references and I think a Master's program is more likely to accept work-related LoR. Is this a sensible assumption?

2) Is it appropriate or necessary to address my illness in my application in any way? I feel like bringing something so personal, and unrelated, into my application is very iffy territory, but I do worry about such a huge gap on my resume working against me if it remains unexplained. Could anyone give me some advice on if to address this, and if so, in what manner it would be best explained?

Thank you in advance!

[gellert]

I don't have a good and knowledgeable answer to your first question, but I think I can help you out with your second!

My general advice given is to just spare a single line in your SOP on this -- keep it focused primarily on your research and only mention your illness in such a way as it seems positive, like something that helped you gain further strength and clarity or direction.

Even better would be if you can get one of your LOR writers to mention it in his/her letter for you. That way, you don't have to waste space in your SOP talking about it and can keep that focused on your research. Your letter writer will also be able to phrase it in such a way that makes it sound even more like an obstacle you overcome rather than making it sound like a pity point (not that I think you'd go for that angle, but sometimes adcomms will read funny things into a SOP even if you didn't mean it to come across that way).

Good luck!

Edited November 21, 2011 by gellert

[sollee]

I don't have a good and knowledgeable answer to your first question, but I think I can help you out with your second!

I also had two years out of school due to medical illness, and that equated to two semesters full of straight W's. The general advice given is to just spare a single line in your SOP on this -- keep it focused primarily on your research and only mention your illness in such a way as it seems positive, like something that helped you gain further strength and clarity or direction.

Even better would be if you can get one of your LOR writers to mention it in his/her letter for you. That way, you don't have to waste space in your SOP talking about it and can keep that focused on your research. Your letter writer will also be able to phrase it in such a way that makes it sound even more like an obstacle you overcome rather than making it sound like a pity point (not that I think you'd go for that angle, but sometimes adcomms will read funny things into a SOP even if you didn't mean it to come across that way).

Good luck!

Thanks for the input! It would be GREAT if one of my LOR writers could talk about it, but being as it didn't affect my employment with them and I was already out of school I don't think they would do so instinctively - I will mention it to the one I have the best relationship with and see if she feels comfortable discussing it briefly in her letter (I think she will, as she knew me both before and after I got sick). And the pity angle is exactly what I'm concerned about - while it was a really powerful experience in my life, I don't want anyone to be able to assume I'm trying to milk my illness for future favors, so I'd just as soon not mention it if I don't have to.

Thanks for your advice regarding my absence from any kind of useful human activity!

Anyone else have ideas for LOR writers for someone out of school for so very long?

[eisoj5]

I'm another one who's been out of school for 5+ years. I'm planning to ask my current boss (she has a Ph.D., but not in Education), a colleague who basically hired me (she has a Master's in Education) and....then the third's kind of up in the air as far as whether I go with a different colleague whose work I've been editing, or another former boss, now colleague of mine. I won't be asking my former professors, though.

Hope that's useful!

By the by, I have a personal statement requirement for one of the schools I"m applying to, so if you have that on top of the SOP too, I'd mention the illness in there, perhaps.