Letters of recommendation for clinical psych PhD

[srabiee]

This probably has a simpler answer than I expect, or at least I hope it will. I have 3 solid recommenders in mind: the professor I coded videos for in my junior and senior years, the childrens' psychoeducational treatment program I will have worked for 2 summers for in August, and the professor who is supervising my MA in Psychological Science research and empirical paper (I'm a little worried about this one since my thesis thing is not due until April and he hasn't seen much of me at all so far). But what on earth do you do if you have 10+ schools you are applying to? How do you even approach that? I know they'll save copies, but what is the most organized way to deal with putting them through all that?

[kaister]

Prepare a list of your schools including the program youre applying, how theyre to send in their letter, due date, some info on the program and your POI. Also give them your cv and perhaps a writing sample to remind them of your work. Professors are used to writing many letters for one student. An organized packet full of all this info is the best way to go in my opinion. You could also write up the addresses on the envelopes for their letters if it needs to be sent by mail.

[psychgurl]

I had the same 3 writers do recommendation letters for all 10 of my schools. Send them a spreadsheet with all programs, due dates, descriptions of POI's/programs. Most programs have electronic recommendation submission systems. This means you'll enter their emails in your electronic application, and they will receive emails from each school's application system. If a school only accepts hard copies of the letters, they usually require a cover letter. Provide this cover letter and postage to your writers if this is the case.

To make sure you get the best letters possible, also provide a transcript, resume, a draft of your personal statement/description of long-term career goals, and anything else that you want them to address that isn't easily communicated in the rest of your application. It takes awhile to compile all of this info, but I think it's worth it. And you also come across as more organized and responsible, which is always a plus!

[srabiee]

Thanks guys! Ugh, I'm so anxious about writing a statement of purpose

[TakeruK]

disillusioned and psychgurl described what I did too -- I sent everyone a 1-pager with some relevant stats at the top: GPA, GRE scores, 2 sentences about my research goals. Then I had a table with due date, school+department name, and 2-3 faculty members I'm interested in. Like the others said, I also attached a CV but I didn't end up sending them my SOP because I wrote those a few days before the applications were due but I sent this information to the letter writers ~2 weeks before the letters were due.

In addition, I also registered my online LORs for several schools at the same time -- this way, they will get emails from Schools A, B, C, and D all at once, so when they sit down to submit the letters, all the emails are grouped together instead of having to search through their inbox. My due dates were spread between Dec 1 and Jan 9, so I sent the letter requests in 2 waves. I then followed up with a reminder email 2 days before each letter was due, and asked something like "would you like me to have the system resend the LOR request form so it's at the top of your inbox?". If their letter didn't arrive on time, I didn't worry too much because I know as long as the main application package is in by the deadline, the letters just have to come before the adcomm actually sits down to read the applications, which could be at least a week from the deadline. But I did have the system send a reminder request though!

I guess it depends on your relationship with the profs when it comes to how much reminding you can/should do so that they don't forget but you don't appear pushy/annoying. This was my third time around asking for letters from most of these people so this was what I found worked best for them! I do think profs appreciate it when you have a summary sheet, a CV, and send reminders, though!

[psychgurl]

Thanks guys! Ugh, I'm so anxious about writing a statement of purpose

I hated writing my statement. I would work on your past achievements paragraph(s) first. Just do it and see what happens--it will probably be better than you think. And you'll feel much better about having written something. Also, you'll be able to use a lot of the content for all your statements...you really only have to tailor the specific research focus paragraphs if you're applying to schools all in the same general area. Good luck!!!