Does a writer who did their PHD at a school you're applying to mean anything?

[scientific]

This is such a minor detail, but I am curious... Does having a letter writer who did their degree where you're applying help? In a weird like "legacy" way.

[khigh]

This would be interesting to know. One of my letter writers got his PhD from the place I am applying. 

[TakeruK]

I don't think any graduate program have this type of "legacy" program.

However, for better or for worse, professors have told me that they read letters of reference to get another scholar's opinion of a candidate. They then try to calibrate that opinion with what they know about the person. For example, if there's a letter writer that consistently writes letters that say "The candidate is the best student in 20 years" then the program might change how they interpret letters from the same person in the future. Or, if the letter writer is well known to the evaluation committee, they might use their knowledge of that person to calibrate the letter. So, if the letter writer is a recent PhD from the school, (some of) the profs there might still remember them and/or might have still been there when your letter writer was a student there. This could be good or bad, depending on what the profs thought of your letter writer.

Note: I'm not saying this is fair or anything since I can see so many different ways for this to be abused or for unconscious bias to slip in. I am not convinced that letters of reference are a good evaluation metric but I can't think of a good alternative to the kind of metrics you get from a letter. That said, maybe the problem is that we should be using different metrics altogether, but that's another topic!

[fuzzylogician]

^Seconding this. It's not exactly about legacy, but one important factor is that people tend to trust people they know more than people they don't, for obvious reasons. So if you compare a letter from a former student you know and trust with a letter from an unknown prof somewhere, it's easy to see how one would carry more weight than the other.

Another advantage this kind of letter has is that when a former student writes "I think X is a good fit with the department", they really know what they're talking about, not just from the perspective of research fit (which you can get from others) but also in the sense that they understand the culture of the department. It's a fact that different departments have different cultures, for example in how much collaboration happens among students/faculty, or how competitive students tend to be, or how much freedom students have in selecting courses/committees/etc, or how often students present in reading groups and share with others, or how much coursework/collaboration happens with other departments, and different people need different levels of those things to be happy. That's independent of whether someone can support your interests. For example, you could have a department that could support your interests, but if you really thrive in an environment that pushes you a lot, you might not be happy if said department is very hands off and you only meet with advisors twice a semester. On the other hand, someone else who shares your interests but enjoys working off on their own a lot might be a better fit. So when a former student writes that your work style and personality fit with a department, the department can really take that opinion seriously. 

[scientific]

20 hours ago, TakeruK said:

However, for better or for worse, professors have told me that they read letters of reference to get another scholar's opinion of a candidate. They then try to calibrate that opinion with what they know about the person. For example, if there's a letter writer that consistently writes letters that say "The candidate is the best student in 20 years" then the program might change how they interpret letters from the same person in the future. Or, if the letter writer is well known to the evaluation committee, they might use their knowledge of that person to calibrate the letter. So, if the letter writer is a recent PhD from the school, (some of) the profs there might still remember them and/or might have still been there when your letter writer was a student there.

 

20 hours ago, fuzzylogician said:

Another advantage this kind of letter has is that when a former student writes "I think X is a good fit with the department", they really know what they're talking about, not just from the perspective of research fit (which you can get from others) but also in the sense that they understand the culture of the department.

 

That makes a lot of sense!

 That part about how a recent PhD from the school may be remembered is essentially in line with what I've been told. I suppose my next question is... how much does culture of a graduate program change over time? If a professor got his PhD from a program 40 years ago but is established now, will his perspective on fit no longer be true? I obviously have no idea what goes into a LOR of this type and I'm curious about the process. I was under the impression they only talked about a candidate's qualities?

[fuzzylogician]

13 minutes ago, scientific said:

 That part about how a recent PhD from the school may be remembered is essentially in line with what I've been told. I suppose my next question is... how much does culture of a graduate program change over time? If a professor got his PhD from a program 40 years ago but is established now, will his perspective on fit no longer be true? I obviously have no idea what goes into a LOR of this type and I'm curious about the process. I was under the impression they only talked about a candidate's qualities?

Unless the prof has kept up with colleagues, they may not know the department culture as well and may not comment on it. 40 years is a long time. That said, over the course of 40 years, a person will have a lot of experience placing students in various grad programs, and therefore might instead write something like this: "Stu has a similar work style to former students X, Y, and Z, who have been successful in your program in recent years." 

As a general rule, I think it's actually entirely acceptable for someone to write not only that someone is a good candidate because of research interests but also that, in particular, their work style/character would fit well with the particular department. To me, that's still a part of the candidate's qualities. One might still write that about departments they never attended or taught at, but certainly one's opinion would carry more weight if they actually have first-hand experience in what they're talking about. 

[TakeruK]

44 minutes ago, scientific said:

 That part about how a recent PhD from the school may be remembered is essentially in line with what I've been told. I suppose my next question is... how much does culture of a graduate program change over time? If a professor got his PhD from a program 40 years ago but is established now, will his perspective on fit no longer be true? I obviously have no idea what goes into a LOR of this type and I'm curious about the process. I was under the impression they only talked about a candidate's qualities?

Agreed with what fuzzy said above. Responding further to your last question, reference letters sometimes have forms that directly ask the letter writer to make some comparisons (in addition to writing text). Sometimes they are questions like, "How does this candidate compare to other students you have advised in terms of....[series of qualities]". So, I think it's certainly within the scope of the "candidate's qualities" to compare these qualities to other candidates, past or present. So it's not much of a stretch to compare the candidates' qualities with that of the program itself. I had one professor tell me that he would write a comparison between me and another student that he had advised, who was a successful graduate of that same program I was applying to (hopefully it was a favourable comparison lol).