Letter writers asking students to write their own LOR's

[F.Underwood]

One of my letter writers wants me to write them a draft of the LOR, is this ok?

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[kthxbai]

This is much more prevalent than you'd think.

Make sure your recommender will back you up, and there's precisely nothing anyone can do about it.

 

[F.Underwood]

Do you think Adcoms would get upset with the student?

 

[SN12357]

Do you think Adcoms would get pissed at the student?

As long as you only draft the letter and the writer finalizes, signs, and sends it this is normal practice and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. Adcoms will neither know nor care.

 

[kthxbai]

Do you think Adcoms would get pissed at the student?

How on earth would they know unless you'd tell them?

 

[ridethecliche]

This happens everywhere and is prevalent for post grad school LOR's.

 

[blueharbor]

.

 

[F.Underwood]

How on earth would they know unless you'd tell them?

Tone and style.

 

[CyberMaxx]

As long as you only draft the letter and the writer finalizes, signs, and sends it this is normal practice and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. Adcoms will neither know nor care.

Agree with this completely. I was asked by my research mentor to write my letter of recommendation. It then went through two other people in the lab plus my mentor before it was sent to AMCAS. My mentor asked me to do this primarily so that I could provide the factual information (worked from october 2009 til january 2014, avg 50 hours per week, etc.). I wrote nice things about myself but left the superlatives/postive anecdotes to my PI.