2 LOR's from same experience??

[wisguy]

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I have been conducting biophysics research on a Fulbright scholarship for the last year. Can I use a letter of recommendation from both my PI and the executive director of my host country's Fulbright board? The thing is, I need to use my PI's letter (which should be pretty good), but I know that the director would write a very strong letter. Alternatively, I could get a letter from a physician that I've shadowed for ~40 hours. (I already have 3 letters from professors (research adviser/bio prof, chair of biology dept and biomedical ethicist), so I should be fine there.) Which letters should I use?

 

[PBandJ]

I think you could get two letters from the same experience as long as you have a wide variety of letters otherwise. I requested two letters from PIs at the same laboratory, but I was working on a different project for each of them (and one is an MD gerontologist, the other a DSc epidemiologist). I'd say if they're going to write basically the same thing, then it would probably make sense to choose one.

Go ahead and get the letter from the physician you shadowed, though. It will be written from a completely different perspective than the research letters (if you choose to use both), and will probably boost your application in a different way as well.