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herewegoagainfolks

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I put almost zero weight into letter of rec at this stage. Everyone has good ones and it is hard to evaluate and compare applicants across letter writers. If you have a bad one, you wouldn't be at this stage.

There are both objective and subjective parts to the rankings I have done. Objective data to rank from your CV and materials, then once we get to the final stages really thinking about several things. Whether the individuals will be good clinicians, good researchers, good people. Can I imagine working closely with them for years? Can the other colleagues of mine enjoy working with them? Rule out personality concerns and red flags. Fit to me is about how their past work can inform their work at present (e.g., can they already do things? - its great if they already have experience with SPSS, clinical populations, an understanding of X, Y, Z), that they know exactly what they are getting into (the specific work + grad school itself), maturity, and personality.

It is not a perfect system and it varies place by place. There is a lot of randomness and it often doesn't always make sense, but at the end of the day it seems to work out fairly well. Good luck!
 
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I've seen some data suggesting LORs can actually predict good outcomes in grad school but under impractical conditions that will never happen. You need like 7 different references attesting to your motivation and drive (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ijsa.12060).

I have a preliminary rank order of applicants before interview day. GREs, research & clinical experience, and personal statement sway me the most. I can fall for consistent, personalized glowing LORs that round you out. I try not to fault the applicant for generic LORs since that could just as easily be a crappy or inexperienced letter writer. Negative LORs are way more informative since most are positive.

On interview day, this is more for me to clarify some things not readily seen in your materials, chance for you to interview me, and for me to assess fit. I'm looking at how your interests & path fit with our strengths and areas of need as well as all the interpersonal jazz that makes for a good clinical student, lab member, and practitioner. I'm not nearly as good at assessing that in our interview as I want to pretend.

Like I said, though, I have an order beforehand. For me, it's more about whether strong interviews merit bumping someone up or weak interviews merit bumping someone down. Take from that what you will.
 
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Negative LORs are way more informative since most are positive.

Out of curiosity, how often do you see negative LORs? I always assumed that people were good at filtering out anyone who would potentially write a negative one and that writers would be honest to the applicant that they couldn't write an overly positive one.
 
It's not an easy decision. I have a semi-formed list although I'm not entirely sold on how to rank it before the interview. My goal is to figure out what you actually want to do rather than what you think I want to hear- people start to open up over the day and that fit matters. By the end I get to have a sense of what they really are like (personally and aspiring peofessionally). I'm watching for any yellow flags at all becayse a yellow flag is a deal killer at this stage. If I'm considering someone as an alternate I like them and things are likely a simple matter of 'I had to make a choice'

Out of curiosity, how often do you see negative LORs? I always assumed that people were good at filtering out anyone who would potentially write a negative one and that writers would be honest to the applicant that they couldn't write an overly positive one.
I rarely see 'negative' ones but often seen luke warm (e.g., "student is good and will successfully complete their degree) and that reads the same.
 
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Out of curiosity, how often do you see negative LORs? I always assumed that people were good at filtering out anyone who would potentially write a negative one and that writers would be honest to the applicant that they couldn't write an overly positive one.

I read a letter this cycle that was already lukewarm and then went out of the way to add the caveat that it had been "some time" since they'd observed the applicant, so they weren't sure if we should consider their impressions as valid. The applicant had worked there like 5 months ago. That writer couldn't have distanced themselves more from the applicant if they'd moved to Antarctica.

Negative letters are indeed rare, and even the "negative" letters are still 95% lukewarm-to-positive.
 
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The take away is that at match schools there is an element of luck involved and so you have to apply to schools as groups to overcome this. Also, most people don't go nearly hard enough trying to find an in or doing the appropriate background research to make sure you stay on (the right) message during the interviews.
 
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