LORs from same lab?

[cherubie]

I've been out of school for 3 years now, and have not kept in contact with any of the professors or internships I did in school. I am an independent worker, and never really bothered to go to office hours or really got to know a professor. Well now that I'm planning on applying next cycle, this is coming back to bite me in the butt.

I've been working at my current lab as a full time RA for over 2 years now, and I'm extremely close with one of the researchers, and got great feedback from my PI also. My question is: Is it frowned upon to have 2 of 3 letters come from the same lab? This is not only my most significant research experience, but I also became much more sociable after college and so actually effortlessly started to develop a friendly-professional relationship with the researchers in my lab. I plan to have one of the writers emphasize the clinical (running experiments) side of my experience here (which my PI doesn't really see), and have my PI emphasize the more administrative and statistical contributions I've made. I plan on getting my third letter either from a professor I'll be taking (I'm able to take undergrad courses for free since I work for a University) or from a hotline volunteering director.

Everyone has been telling me this is a bad idea to get 2 letters from the same place, but I don't really have a lot of other options. I've reached out to 2 professors from college, and so far, no one (understandably) responded. Please someone tell me this is okay and I'm not risking having my app thrown away simply because I didn't suck up to my professors enough (not trying to be offensive, but I think this whole thing is just ridiculous).

[srl413]

_{I am in the same boat! My lab has two lines of resarch going on, and I am hoping to get a letter of rec from the PI about one project and a different research for another. Is this bad? How does it look to have post-docs write your LORs?}

[TropicalCharlie]

Given that these are the only options available to you, then that's what you have to work with. If both LOR writers in the lab were going to write the same things about you, then that would not be helpful. However, since you plan on having the PI and another researcher write about different attributes, that sounds totally fine. The only thing I could see adcomms picking on and may view as a negative is that you lack diversity in work experience. When you were an undergrad, did you hold any degree related volunteer/internship/research jobs? This could be a source of another experience-related LOR. For your third LOR, i would be very selective in the writer. You want their letter to have substance as oppose to one that just says so and so got an A in my class. Good luck with your application season!

[TakeruK]

It's not ideal, but not so frowned upon that your application would be immediately rejected! If it's your only work experience and the only way you can get 3 LORs, then make the best of it -- it's good that the letter writers will say different things about you.

But you say you have worked at the lab for 2 years now. Have you been doing the same project for 2 whole years?? If not, I would actually count each project as a separate line/entry in your CV and have one LOR writer talk about one project while another could talk about a different project. Having your third LOR be a course-related LOR isn't ideal but to make the most of it, choose carefully! When I used a course-related LOR, I actually emailed the prof with a list of schools I'm applying to. He then let me know where he thought his letter could help (I have a good enough relationship with him to ask this!). It's helpful if the prof has a connection with a school (e.g. alma mater, did grad school with faculty there, has sent previous students there and can compare you favourably to them), so maybe you could pick 2 or 3 potential course-related LOR writers and try to find the best match for each school!

[cherubie]

Thank you for all your responses. When I wrote that entry, I was kind of freaked out since LORs are such an important part of your application, and it seemed like I screwed up in that area.

To answer the question regarding projects- I'm involved in every project (except 1) that has gone on in the lab since my time here. There are numerous projects going on at once, and since I'm the lab's RA in general, I do a little bit of everything in the lab, from data-entry to training undergrad/grad students, to writing protocols to using statistics to analyze data, and more.

In undergrad, I did a number of internships/volunteers, but unfortunately, I didn't keep in contact with them, and they are about 5-6 years ago (I graduated 3 years ago, and some of the internships are in my freshman/sophomore year.

But since writing this post, things seem to be working out a little better. I contacted a professor from college, who got back to me. So I think I will end up with 1 letter from this lab, 1 letter from a professor (either from my alma mater or from a summer class I will be taking shortly), and 1 letter from a hotline I am currently volunteering at.

Thank you all. It's good to see things in perspective!