Giving my LOR writers a packet tomorrow. What else should I include?

[youngcharlie101]

Two of my professors from my MA program are writing me a LOR for a PhD program in anthropology. I am stopping by their offices tomorrow to give them a packet of materials they need:

 

1- List of schools with respective deadlines, starting with the first

2- Personal Statement 

3- Writing Sample

4- Transcripts

5- Points to include in the letter

6- CV

 

I swear, I feel like I'm forgetting something. What else should I include? Also, what are some other points to include in the letter, aside from the candidate's research potential, maturity level and professionalism, etc?

[wuglife427]

I don't know how recently you took classes with your letter-writers, but if a couple of semesters have gone by, it could be good to include a copy of something you wrote for their class, like a final paper or other larger project. While I don't think they need to address specific projects of yours in the letter, it will serve as a reminder of your specific skills, how you approach problems, and other positive things about your work that may jump out at them.

[TakeruK]

I don't know if you listed these in any particular order, but I would make sure the list of schools and your "points to include in the letter" are at the top of the list. This sounds like a lot of material to give to your professors and they might not see the "points to include in letter", which I think is fairly important! I would probably also move CV up there and keep the personal statement, writing sample, and transcript at the back because although they provide useful info, I feel that they are more like "supplementary info" that provide supporting evidence for the things you put in the "points to include in the letter" page.

 

Also, I would add an extra column to the list of schools: Show them the school name, deadline, and the names of a few professors you particularly want to work with. 

 

Finally, I would also add some summary information about you in the "points to include in letter" page. For example, I put my GPA, my GRE scores, and a 2 sentence summary of my research goals in grad school. That way, they should have a summary of everything they need in the first two pieces of paper!

[bsharpe269]

Maybe this depends on how well you know your LOR writers but I dont think I would ever give mine a list of things to include in the letters... that comes off as sort of rude to me. They know how to write letters, they do it all the time. If they know you at all then they should already know your research interests and reasons you want to go to grad school. Now if you have something specific that you want one of them to mention for you for then that is completely understandable but I still think you would discuss this with them in person and let them address it however they feel is best.

 

When I met with my LOR writers a few months ago to officially ask for letters, I brought my list of schools to the meeting and just discussed the process with them in general. I have been keeping up with them alot throughout the process, getting their edits to my SOPs and all. Now that we are closer to the deadlines, I emailed them a final list of schools with due dates. I guess you could give them a CV but that even seems a bit pointless to me even because you don't want them discussing your past volunteer work or whatever in the letter... you want them detailing specific things that they have whitnessed from you that make you stand out as a student. My opinion is that you should just go talk to them with a list of your programs and discuss anything you need to in person.

[TakeruK]

I was going to write an addendum but deleted it because I thought it might be too long, but bsharpe brings up a good point. I actually only gave my letter writers the list of deadlines and prof names. I did not write a "list of points" because all my LOR writers are my research supervisors that I have talked with about grad schools for many hours. I did include the other stuff I mentioned on this page (GRE, research interest etc.) but I managed to fit it all onto the "list of deadlines" page. So, my "package" was only a single page.

 

I definitely agree with bsharpe's suggestion to sit down and talk with each LOR writer prior to sending these packages. It would be a good time to ask them what extra info they might want and also figure out how they wanted to be reminded about LORs. One prof assured me that email reminders are greatly appreciated and that I should not feel bad about sending them, especially if it's past the deadline. Another prof asked for a specific reminder schedule so that the request appears in his inbox at the right time! 

 

I think talking to your profs might also be a good idea because the advice we're giving might 1) work best for our fields, but not yours and 2) what our profs wanted might be very different than yours!