which prof. to ask for a recommendation?

[cocorico]

Thanks for reading, because it seems like there are already a million questions on this forum about this topic!

I am having a really difficult time deciding on who to ask for my third LOR for PhD programs. My first two will both be professors that I have worked with during my MA (I'm now in my second year) who know me very well and can vouch for my research. Here are my options for my third writer:

1. A professor who has been at my institution for a long time, but does not seem to be well-known generally in the field. She knows me very well, gave me a good grade in her seminar, liked my research, and now I am TA-ing for her. I know she will write a strong letter but again, she doesn't seem to be well-known. She is the only one at my institution who is in my subfield.

2. A professor that I am currently taking a course with and acting as a research assistant for. She and I have different areas of specialty, so I feel like as a result she is less interested in my own work. We get along fairly well, and she's a visiting professor from a school which is among my top choices. She's also quite well-respected, but we've only known each other since the beginning of this school year.

3. A professor that I took a seminar with last year, and received a very good grade in. However, we've only kept in touch occasionally since then, and the paper that I wrote for her course was a methodology paper, not a full-blown research paper with scholarly apparatus. She has advised me on other research projects, although she is very busy with her own work. She is exceptionally well-known in the field.

Thanks for any and all advice!!

[kaister]

Well that depends. Are you going for a program heavy in research? If that's the case, I'd choose the one who's most familiar with your work in research, and from here it seems like #2. But again, you have to gauge if you'd think they will write a strong letter for you and what elements you want to highlight. #1 doesn't seem like a bad option either...they don't have to be "well-known", or at least that's my opinion. I think what's more important is that they have great things to say about you rather than their own fame. But I don't know your field or the common stance on that.