Confusion about what schools want for LoR (Differentiating "met the Requirement" and "maximum we want")

[The Funny Bear]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Maybe I am just bad with reading comprehension. But many schools would say that they want these letters, or a committee letter suffices the requirement. My committee letter is not a letter packet and I have additional letters that are strong. So I want to send additional letters, but am worried that schools would not want additional letters.

Does this mean that we are not supposed to send any additional letters on top of the committee letter? Or does it just mean the minimum requirement?

Or should I only worry about that when they specifically say do not send more than required (like Emory and Northwestern did?)

Examples of confusion:




Or




Or

 

[KnightDoc]

Not sure that you are really bad with reading comprehension, but you are definitely overthinking it. The committee letter is the gold standard. One of your examples flat out says that the committee letter is REQUIRED if your UG makes one available to you. Another other very clearly says that a committee letter is one of two ways to meet their requirements. That means if you use it, you are done!

In general, you just want to use your strongest letters, if you are not using a committee letter. There is no advantage to giving them more than they are asking for. It might be neutral, or it might annoy them that you are creating more work for them. Why risk it? Just use your best letters to meet their requirements and be done with it. Again, if you have access to a committee letter, and, especially if it won't suck, you honestly don't have anything to think about.

 

[The Funny Bear]

Not sure that you are really bad with reading comprehension, but you are definitely overthinking it. The committee letter is the gold standard. One of your examples flat out says that the committee letter is REQUIRED if your UG makes one available to you. Another other very clearly says that a committee letter is one of two ways to meet their requirements. That means if you use it, you are done!

In general, you just want to use your strongest letters, if you are not using a committee letter. There is no advantage to giving them more than they are asking for. It might be neutral, or it might annoy them that you are creating more work for them. Why risk it? Just use your best letters to meet their requirements and be done with it. Again, if you have access to a committee letter, and, especially if it won't suck, you honestly don't have anything to think about.

Thanks for the response. I have other strong letters aside from the committee letter though, feel like I shouldn’t let them go to waste…

 

[KnightDoc]

Thanks for the response. I have other strong letters aside from the committee letter though, feel like I shouldn’t let them go to waste…

Has the committee seen them? Some committees include the letters with the committee letter, and others make reference to them. If your committee letter won't be strong, you can proceed without it, but that's NOT recommended. Otherwise, maybe ask the committee if they would consider including your strong letters if they aren't already.

If neither of these are viable options, it's your call whether the risk of overloading an adcom with material it isn't requesting is worth the potential upside of getting strong letters in front of them. I wouldn't do it. I'm just an applicant like you, who is uptight about the quality of his letters (I didn't help write them or see them, so I'm left assuming they are fine without knowing for sure!). That said, from studying the process for the past two years, I am convinced we all place waaay too much importance on them.

Committee letters are the gold standard for a reason -- they are written by people who know what adcoms are looking for, and they deliver the goods by addressing points adcoms find relevant, and, more importantly, placing us in context with other applicants from our UG. Plain old LORs don't do this, are usually very good, and consequently just don't move the needle, other than in bad ways in the rare case where the letter is qualified in the writer's praise.

As a result, your strong letters are, quite frankly, unlikely to help in an meaningful way, and risk annoying whoever has to read them by creating a little extra work for them, since the committee letter is all they are really going to care about. JMHO, but, your strong letters are not going to waste if they are helping your committee write a strong letter for you.