What to look for in a recommender

[WildeThing]

I am starting to think about who of my current and previous lecturers and advisors to ask for a recommendation. I have established a good relationship with several professors but each of them would come with advantages and disadvantages as to what they can discuss. So, what do you want your recommendations to reflect? Do you want them to be varied in what they discuss or should they all stress the same notions? Do you want a niche group or get people from different backgrounds? Do you want them from the latest institutin or a sample from each one? Should they comment on your thesis idea or on your character traits?

Feel free to just answer that, but if anyone is willing to give more specific advice, I'll write below some of my options, but answering the above would probably better serve the community:

- One recommender was very fond of me but he only taught me one course in my BA (two years ago, 3 by the time I apply) and has not been active in publishing or academia beyond teaching the occasional course. That said, he did write my last grant recommendation.

- My BA thesis advisor with whom I got along with but we had little contact beyond that paper and is also very lethargic in academia, though he is fsmiliar with the work I want to pursue.

- My MA thesis advisor who also tsught me several courses in my BA and first MA. She wrote me a glowing recommendstion for a grant but I think she wants me to return to my home country and do my PhD there with her. Also, she does not see any future in what I want to pursue. 

- Two of my BA and MA teachers, who I've dealt with frequently as I worked with when I was running a student group. Either of them would be able to comment on a variety of courses and on my extracurricular activities, but I have asked them for recommendations in the past and though they were vey willing, their letters were quite bland and generic.

- A professor who I got along with very well and gave me glowingg recommendations but I had my course with her early in my BA and since then she moved to another institution. So I have not had academic contact with her in years even though I am sure she would write as glowing a recommendation as possible.

- Program directors who I talked to frequently but who actually had little exposure to my best academic work.

- Lecturers in my current, American institution (the rest were foreign). The MA I am doing is in a different field entirely but they would have the best idea of my sbility to work in an American university. 

- I am GA assisting in a program and will be teaching next year. Should I ask my bosses, who can discuss my work as a teacher, but in a different field and with no knowledge of my ability as a researcher.

Basically, I am torn between choosing between people who will give glowing recommendations but who might not be held in high regard or those who are held in higher regard but are but like me less. Between lecturers from the past who I forged greater bonds with, or current lecturers who know the American system but who are unlikely to write as glowing reviews, and who are largely in a separate field. Between those who can discuss work on the field I want to pursue, my teaching, or extracurriculars. Ultimately, it is obviously subjective but I wonder how some of you approach getting the right blend of recommendations.

 

[WildeThing]

Hm, maybe if I simplify: 

 

What do you look at when choosing someone to write your recommendation? How do you weigh the different factors and do you give consideration to choosing people who can vouch for qualities other than your strictly academic work (e.g. Teaching ability)?

Edited November 24, 2016 by WildeThing

[Caien]

It seems like you have a lot of options for referees!

In my case, I had four professors who agreed to write for me if I so wished. My dissertation supervisor, with whom I get along great and has been very encouraging of my decision to apply to graduate study, was a definite. As for the other three, I decided to try and find a balance between how well they know me, how enthusiastic about my work they seemed to be, their 'fame', and whether or not they are specialists in my area of interest. So for my second two I ended up picking a professor who knew me and my work well, I knew would write me good letter, and works in my subfield, but is a relatively new academic. And then for the last I chose a very famous professor who has friends everywhere, including at many Ivy League unis, but who would not know my work quite as well as the other two. To offset this I provided him with a few drafts of my sop, UK masters research proposal and some essays from undergrad. The second two were profs I had in seminar courses.

The prof I left out is actually the leading specialist worldwide in my very specific area of research, however... he's a bit of an odd fish (does not react well when people disagree with his ideas), and to be entirely frank I always got the impression he didn't like me very much, and never seems very encouraging/enthusiatic about my postgrad plans. He offered to write me a letter, but I decided there was a distinct possibility the letter would be very mundane, so I've gone with the other three.

[Dr. Old Bill]

My thoughts are rather similar to @Caien's.

I had five potential referees. Two were never in doubt, while a third was a no-brainer for awhile until things got...complicated. I won't go into detail about the complications, but suffice it to say that in September, I decided to shift my academic focus slightly (from one avenue of early modern historicism to another), and use a different WS than I had originally planned. The third LOR-writer did not like my original WS, and while he was incredibly supportive, he said he could only write me a "good, but not great" letter. This caused me to look for other LOR-writers prior to my change of WS / focus, and I had two who were more than willing to write me a positive letter (one in the ballpark of my field, and the other a reputable professor in a different field entirely). Fortunately my original third LOR-writer was a lot more bullish on my other WS, and he insisted that he would be "happy to write" for me. After meeting with another professor entirely to get her objective opinion, she pointed out something that I never would have considered myself: my two no-brainer LOR-writers are both women, as is the other potential LOR-writer in the ballpark of my field. The "good-but-not-great" then "happy-to-write" LOR-writer is male. When presented with my options, this objective professor (who is also a woman) said "choose the man." She pointed out that there are tacit significations when a man only has letters from female professors. I hate that she has a point. I really, truly, honestly hate it. And yet, despite the distastefulness of it, I suspect it is true on some level. These sorts of biases still exist, as much as I wish they didn't...but having a blend of genders writing positive letters might be more advantageous than having three from one gender.

Ultimately, I have no idea if the third (male) letter-writer I chose will write me a better letter than the other potential third (female) letter-writer would have done, but the gender factor is what swayed me in the end. I was already leaning toward him in the first place, but that consideration made my decision.

So I guess the takeaway here is that there can be more factors in play than just the obvious scholarship-related ones.

[Caien]

1 hour ago, Wyatt's Terps said:

there are tacit significations when a man only has letters from female professors. I hate that she has a point. I really, truly, honestly hate it. And yet, despite the distastefulness of it, I suspect it is true on some level. These sorts of biases still exist, as much as I wish they didn't...but having a blend of genders writing positive letters might be more advantageous than having three from one gender.
 

This is something that doesn't come up very much, but I actually had a similar conversation about my SoP last year. The three PoI's I mentioned were men, and an advisor at my undergrad uni told me it would give a bad impression (I'm a female applicant, though I think it would be equally bad for a male applicant in this case) to only want to work with male professors.

[WildeThing]

I never considered gender actually and now that I think of it the 3-4 people I am leaning towards are all women (I'm not). 

[Metaellipses]

I think this probably depends greatly on the perceived size of your undergraduate / master's institution. For some people, there isn't really an option to choose professors who are of the opposite gender, because there's only an opportunity to work with a limited number of professors.

I was a female applicant with all male professors as recommenders, but I came from a small liberal arts college (2k students). There were only two professors in my discipline and both of them were male. My third recommender was the only professor outside my discipline with whom I had taken more than one class. Come to think of it actually, I didn't take a single English class with a woman the entire time I was in undergrad...

So just to those from SLACs who may be inclined to fret over this - I wouldn't worry about it. The admissions committee will know that you were working with a much smaller pool of faculty members. I think it's only an issue if it's perceived as intentional. But that only makes sense in larger programs (or those perceived as larger).

If anything, I will say that it's sometimes good as a female applicant to have female recommenders. I've had issues with letters written by male faculty in the past (not necessarily by recommenders, but in other academic and professional environments). Not because they weren't positive and professional letters, but because they used gendered language. This immediately stands out as "icky" to me - and I'm assuming to other people on committees.