LOR by a tutor? /// + General advice on choices for LOR

[Rising]

Hello everyone!

I am planning on applying for MA in Eastern European and Russian Studies in Harvard, Yale, Stanford an Oxford (by the way, looking for people who have applied/are planning to apply for any of these programs). My GPA is not that great, so I am trying to compensate with the rest of the application. I would like to ask whether I am allowed to submit a LOR from a tutor? She knows me very well, she taught me several relevant classes and she has PhD.

I also have hard time deciding who to ask for LOR. I will just briefly mention my options and I would be very grateful, if anyone could give any feedback. 

1. Eastern European and Russian Politics professor - did well in his class and expect a strong LOR. He is also fairly known in this field.

2. My tutor as I already mentioned above. She knows me and I expect a strong LOR from her.

3. Russian language teacher at university. I expect a super strong LOR from her but there are 2 problems here: She has no PhD and she left university to take a break, so no uni e-mail address.

4. Soviet History professor - did well in his class and he is well-known in the field. However, I took his class in my first year and I am sure that he doesn't remember me. Thus, I don't know what to expect.

5. Migration Policy professor - did really well in her class and expect a strong LOR. However, her subject had very little to do with my region of interest. Nevertheless, I wrote all my papers on regional topics, so I guess she could mention that in the LOR? Would it work?

6. International Security professor - did well in his class and expect a strong LOR. However, his subject again had very little to do with my region of interest but I would like to conduct research on regional security during my MA. 

I am stuck and would really appreciate any feedback I can get.

Thank you!

 

[TakeruK]

Just to check: Are you at a school like Cambridge/Oxford or other UK school where a tutor is a person hired to do research and provide small group tutorials/teaching to supplement the students' instruction from professors? If so, then I think this person would be a good LOR writer and able to speak to your ability better than some of the professors because she knows you a lot better.

However, it's useful to note that in North America, a tutor is usually someone unrelated to the University (**they may be another student or a graduate student but they are working as a private service, not part of the University) and a person that you pay (usually by the hour) to help you catch up on classwork. So if this is the case, then I think the tutor is not an appropriate choice for a letter. Even if this is not the case, I would make sure I know this is the meaning most North Americans will associate with "tutor" so I'd avoid using that title in your application to refer to this person.

Overall, I think the only person I would say you should strike off this list is #3. Most schools ask for 3 letters so I would pick the three out of the remaining five that knows you the best. If you are allowed to submit more than 3, then you could consider that too. Out of the five though, I would say #4 might be the least helpful as you say they might not remember you and they taught you an introductory first year class rather than an upper level class.

[Rising]

Just to check: Are you at a school like Cambridge/Oxford or other UK school where a tutor is a person hired to do research and provide small group tutorials/teaching to supplement the students' instruction from professors? If so, then I think this person would be a good LOR writer and able to speak to your ability better than some of the professors because she knows you a lot better.

However, it's useful to note that in North America, a tutor is usually someone unrelated to the University (**they may be another student or a graduate student but they are working as a private service, not part of the University) and a person that you pay (usually by the hour) to help you catch up on classwork. So if this is the case, then I think the tutor is not an appropriate choice for a letter. Even if this is not the case, I would make sure I know this is the meaning most North Americans will associate with "tutor" so I'd avoid using that title in your application to refer to this person.

Overall, I think the only person I would say you should strike off this list is #3. Most schools ask for 3 letters so I would pick the three out of the remaining five that knows you the best. If you are allowed to submit more than 3, then you could consider that too. Out of the five though, I would say #4 might be the least helpful as you say they might not remember you and they taught you an introductory first year class rather than an upper level class.

Thank you for the reply, TakeruK!

Yes, the role of the tutor in my university is exactly the one you mentioned: to do research and provide small group tuturoails to supplement the students' instruction from professors.

So, in your opinion, submitting 1 LOR from a professor outside my region of interest will not hurt my chances?

[TakeruK]

I cannot say for sure in case there are differences between our fields, but I never considered the (sub)field of my letter writers when selecting them. I always went for the ones that can speak the strongest about my research and academic abilities. For example, when I was applying for my Masters in Astronomy, I just picked three former research advisors. My intended area of research was in planet formation, and I had letter writers from medical physics, extragalactic astronomy, and asteroid science**. Of course, all three of them were physicists/astronomers of some kind---but I didn't worry that they were not directly in my region of interest. At some level research/academic ability is research/academic ability and it doesn't matter if I learned it while in a medical physics group or an astronomy group!

(** For my PhD applications, I switched the medical physics letter (also the weakest) out for my Masters letter. My PhD application is to work on exoplanets, which doesn't really fit in the same subfields either, though!)

[rising_star]

So, in your opinion, submitting 1 LOR from a professor outside my region of interest will not hurt my chances?

No, it won't, especially since that professor has valuable things to say about your academic potential.

[Rising]

TakeruK, rising_star, thank you both for your replies. They have been very helpful!!

P.S. Still looking for someone who has applied for one of the programs mentioned in my first post.

[Rising]

I have other 2 questions, so I will just write it here instead of opening a new thread: 

Question N1:

I will submit 1 professional recommendation as well, however, I cannot decide who to ask. Here are my 2 options:

1. Relatively small NGO (unknown in the USA), which organizes international conferences on security issues (mainly regional security issues). I have interned there for 4 months (I am still there). Expect a really strong LoR from the president of the NGO.

2. The President's foreign policy advisor (or someone from his team, if he is busy). I interned there for 1 month but that was 2 years ago.We communicate quite often will people from his team, I visit them regularly and expect very strong LoR as well. 

So here's my dilemma: high-ranked person or someone who knows me better?

Question N2:

Under which category falls "volunteer work" in the application? Write in under "Extracurricular activities" in the CV?

Any feedback will be greatly appreciated! Thanks and have a wonderful day everyone!

[TakeruK]

I am too far removed from your field to be able to give a helpful answer to question 1!

For question 2, I put volunteer work in the appropriate category in my CV. My experience sections in the CV were research experience, teaching experience and service/leadership. So, if the volunteer work was a volunteer tutor or science camp instructor, then I just put it under teaching experience. In my field, I don't think it's really necessary to distinguish between paid work and volunteer work in most cases. In the few cases where it was important, I just put a note like "(volunteer work)" for the relevant entries. However, for the schools that asked for this distinction, it was often something I had to enter directly into the application form itself rather than include on the CV.

[Rising]

I am too far removed from your field to be able to give a helpful answer to question 1!

For question 2, I put volunteer work in the appropriate category in my CV. My experience sections in the CV were research experience, teaching experience and service/leadership. So, if the volunteer work was a volunteer tutor or science camp instructor, then I just put it under teaching experience. In my field, I don't think it's really necessary to distinguish between paid work and volunteer work in most cases. In the few cases where it was important, I just put a note like "(volunteer work)" for the relevant entries. However, for the schools that asked for this distinction, it was often something I had to enter directly into the application form itself rather than include on the CV.

Thank you, TakeruK! Really appreciate your help. =)