2 questions about who to get letters from

[Guest Gnome Chomsky]

Hey everyone,

Like my title says, I have two questions. My first question is, is it okay to not provide a professional LOR, i.e. place of employment? I've had many jobs over the years. None of them are related to my field nor are they really anything worth providing a letter from. To be honest, I doubt anyone I worked for would be able to string together a few decent sentences. I've worked at restaurants, had a construction gig, and most recently worked for a mom-and-pop electronics store that closed down. I don't even know if I'd be able to find any of them or if some of them would even remember me. The only real people I can go to for impressive LORs would be my college(s).

Second question is, would it be alright to provide a LOR from a professor from my community college? I spent my first 2 years at a community college where I had a 4.0, won top student on all campuses, was published in my school's academic journal, and was in the Honors program. I've always maintained good relationships with a number of professors and would easily be able to get a letter from any one of them. When I transferred to my university, I wasn't nearly as active as I was before. I did nothing extracirricularly. On a positive note, I maintained my 4.0 and had a very good relationship with my professors. I was a linguistics major, and my department only has 4 professors. I can get a letter from all 4 of them. I don't need to get letters from my community college professors since all of my current professors would write me a letter. I was just wondering if it would be a good idea.

So to summarize. I really can't provide a LOR from an employer. And should I include one from my community college where I did a lot of impressive extraciricular things?

[TakeruK]

As many will tell you on this forums, you should only use a professional reference as a last resort, or if they have been working in the field for awhile instead of applying out of undergrad. Academia works differently than the "real" job world -- and they are looking for different skills and attributes in academic LORs than job LORs. For example, if you were applying for a job, you'd want your former manager to say things like you are always punctual, had a good work ethic, performed really well (in $ sold, or whatever metric), were reliable, showed leadership, etc. Those are all very nice traits but graduate admission committees are looking to see whether or not you will perform well in their academic program, and most importantly, what are your current research ability and what kind of potential you have.

Class performance isn't a bad letter but it's not a good LOR either -- a letter that says "Student X consistently scored at the top of his/her class" is okay, but doesn't tell much more than your transcript. Whenever possible, you should also go for someone who can say something about your research ability/potential instead of just coursework. In addition, it's useful to know that they are looking for comparative statements -- they don't want to know that Prof. X thinks you are good at research. Your prof will probably say something like "this student is in the top 5% of all undergrads I've met in terms of research potential". Sometimes the letters have a free-form part as well as a "survey" part, where the prof ranks some attributes in terms of "best student ever", "top 1%", "top 5%", and so on. Other important attributes are things like "ability to work independently", "ability to succeed in academics", "ability to communicate well", and so on.

I think the things in the previous paragraph are most important in selecting a LOR writer. A secondary thing to choose is the "connections" that your LOR writer has with the field and the school you're applying to. If you know he/she can compare you favourably to one of their former students who is currently at the program you're applying to, that could be helpful. Also, if they know the people in the department personally (alma mater, former colleagues, whatever), their opinion might be worth more than another unknown prof. Of course, if they are famous in the field, that's a plus -- being rated top 1% by a field leader will mean much more than a top 1% rating from another prof. But it's not clear if a mediocre LOR from a field leader is better than a personally written and strong endorsement from someone less well known. Famous people tend to know a lot of people and they might not end up knowing you as well as they could have so their letter may be more generic!

How do you find out these connections? Don't be afraid to just ask your potential LOR writers. Many profs will be willing to help undergrads with grad school decisions -- not all of them but since you know them well, you can probably figure out who would help you. They will also give you good advice on what programs are a fit for you but don't be afraid to apply to places outside of their list (or even places they told you to avoid) since they might not know all the details behind your choices. At this point, they might already be saying things like "I can write you a strong LOR for school X". Since most schools only require 3 LORs, I only sent my 4th LOR (which I felt was weaker than the others) to places where I thought that person could make a difference. I emailed them my list of schools and proposed supervisors and they told me where they thought a letter from them might help.

I recommend choosing your LORs wisely because even though some schools allow up to 6 LORs in total, they will usually treat them all with equal weight. So a less strong LOR will "pull down the average", so to speak. So maybe you will use a different set of 3-4 profs for different applications!

Related to the above, LORs from a community college won't be as strong as one from your current college. Not to diminish your achievements, but a 4.0 / top student at a community college isn't as impressive as the same achievement at a bigger/more competitive school. You got the same GPA at the new school though, so it's pretty clear that you are a strong student. Everything you said about your achievements at the community college could appear in other parts of your applications (put publication and awards and honours program in the CV; your transcript will show the 4.0). But I don't know all the details, maybe the people at your community college knows you better and can write something more sincere and less generic. It's not a bad thing to have a LOR from community college at all, but in your case, it sounds like you have equally good letters from your current program. I don't know all your details though.

Finally, it really doesn't sound like a letter from any of your past employers would help at all. I don't mean to say that working these jobs is bad -- I have done the same too, but it's just not the kind of thing that graduate committees are looking for. That is, the skills you learned at these jobs probably don't apply to a PhD in linguistics very much!!

[Guest Gnome Chomsky]

TakeruK,

Thanks for the very good response. You were extremely helpful. A few minutes after posting this I heard from someone that you don't really have to list the job unless it may have relevance. I saw a lot of sources that said most people do 2 academic LORs and 1 job-related LOR, which is why I kinda panicked. I would say that my community college professors know me much better on a personal level than my university professors. Mainly because I would go on trips at my CC and would be experiencing new cities with these professors for weeks at a time. The professors at my university know me a lot better on an academic level. They know my strengths and skills in relevance to the field I will be applying for. I was thinking 2 LORs from my linguistics university professors to show that I know what I'm doing, and 1 LOR from an old community college professor to show what I accomplished extracirricularly and how I grew as a person.

[emmm]

I was out of school a long time (over 15 years) and took classes at a CC that led to me wanting to go on for more education. So 2 of my letters were from CC profs. I was told in one interview that that weakened my application, but they were the only people who knew me and they wrote great letters and I got in! So, they were my best/only option. I think your plan of 2 and 1 sounds fine.

[TakeruK]

I think your plan sounds good! Good luck!