How early is too early?

[agarofal]

Hi all,

I was in the process of applying to law school for the Fall 2010 cycle and almost sent in the applications when I realized that I would hate law school. Now I'm looking at applying to urban planning programs, possibly for the spring 2010 cycle but more likely for fall of 2011. With that, I'm trying to cultivate two LORs that would be directly related to urban planning (fortunately one law school LOR was from an urban planning professor). I'm in my last year of undergrad right now and I want to make sure I get my LORs settled before I leave. If I start asking for LORs now, when can the writers send them in? Any advice would be appreciated as I just changed directions about two days ago and have not had time to figure out the grad school admissions process.

Thanks!

[jacib]

Hi all,

I was in the process of applying to law school for the Fall 2010 cycle and almost sent in the applications when I realized that I would hate law school. Now I'm looking at applying to urban planning programs, possibly for the spring 2010 cycle but more likely for fall of 2011. With that, I'm trying to cultivate two LORs that would be directly related to urban planning (fortunately one law school LOR was from an urban planning professor). I'm in my last year of undergrad right now and I want to make sure I get my LORs settled before I leave. If I start asking for LORs now, when can the writers send them in? Any advice would be appreciated as I just changed directions about two days ago and have not had time to figure out the grad school admissions process.

Thanks!

Talk with the career counselor at your undergrad. A lot of schools have archiving services that will save the letters until you're ready to apply (a few school don't accept letters from archiving services... Yale for instance). However, I'm two and a half years out of undergrad and all my professors still remembered me, even ones I took one class with almost five years ago. Though sometimes I feel like my undergraduate thesis adviser, who I took two separate graduate level classes with as an undergrad, needed a reminder as to who I am....

[ana3a]

Hi all,

I was in the process of applying to law school for the Fall 2010 cycle and almost sent in the applications when I realized that I would hate law school. Now I'm looking at applying to urban planning programs, possibly for the spring 2010 cycle but more likely for fall of 2011. With that, I'm trying to cultivate two LORs that would be directly related to urban planning (fortunately one law school LOR was from an urban planning professor). I'm in my last year of undergrad right now and I want to make sure I get my LORs settled before I leave. If I start asking for LORs now, when can the writers send them in? Any advice would be appreciated as I just changed directions about two days ago and have not had time to figure out the grad school admissions process.

Thanks!

Check with the potential schools when is the earliest they accept LoRs, and if they accept letters archived by your undergraduate school's dossier service.

I'm not sure if the following applies to urban planning. For LoRs in the natural sciences, (no matter whether a professor submits a LoR online or in paper) the professor is asked to rank your abilities in a little table (e.g. you were in the best 25%, 10%, etc. of all his/her past students). If this is also the case for urban planning, it might be problematic to work out how your professors will accomplish this. (Because the LoR form for 2010 is not yet available.) However, they might be willing to rank you in free-form in the body of their letter. See what the urban planning application entails this year.