Reapplying this year. Taking LORs from the same professors! Do they need to completely redraft the LORs?

[JessePinkman]

Hi! I am reapplying this year and am taking LORs from the same professors. Do they need to completely redraft and rewrite the LORs or only adding 1-2 lines about my progress in this 1 year is enough? Thank you.

[fuzzylogician]

Well, I suppose that depends on what changed between last year and this and it's completely up to your professors to decide how to revise their letters from last year.

 

I would imagine that most of what was in there before is still relevant now, but perhaps the intro/background and the conclusion would need to be updated and if you were involved in research activities involving them as supervisors or instructors then they may add a paragraph or two discussing the projects/classes you were involved in and what the outcomes were. If the letter was fairly weak last time, they may choose to just write a new one. If it was good before and stronger now, they may just add a couple of paragraphs to the existing letter to beef it up. At least, that's how I would do things if it were me.