How long should letters of recommendation be?

[Member 8586]

My dentist asked roughly how long the letter should be? I figured about a page or so or is that too long?

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[premolar9]

I'm not sure how long a letter should be, but my dentist's letter was a page, and my research advisors was a little over a page long.
For teachers, I heard that half a page is acceptable..so I guess it depends on who is writing it? And their writing style? A page ought to be fine though

Hope that helps...

 

[Member 8586]

thanks i was thinking of just saying a page too but im not sure if thats too much to ask of him...any other input?

 

[NDPitch]

I personally think a page is a lot. Also, are we talking single spaced? Double spaced?

A single spaced page is a LOT. These adcoms have to read thousands of personal statements, and then read through your app, and then read through all of your letters, and then read through your supplemental if they have one, etc etc. That is a lot of material to read.

I was under the impression that brief and to the point was good. For example I wouldn't expect a professor's letter to say more than something like "this person did really well, I think they can handle dental school and I recommend you highly consider them, they were very nice and professional in class, their excellent grade in my class also equates to their good performance in their other classes" etc. Obviously it would be more fleshed out across a couple paragraphs, but I don't think we should expect these people to be writing essays on us.

If anyone disagrees, by all means I'm willing to hear what you think.

 

[Member 8586]

I personally think a page is a lot. Also, are we talking single spaced? Double spaced?

A single spaced page is a LOT. These adcoms have to read thousands of personal statements, and then read through your app, and then read through all of your letters, and then read through your supplemental if they have one, etc etc. That is a lot of material to read.

I was under the impression that brief and to the point was good. For example I wouldn't expect a professor's letter to say more than something like "this person did really well, I think they can handle dental school and I recommend you highly consider them, they were very nice and professional in class, their excellent grade in my class also equates to their good performance in their other classes" etc. Obviously it would be more fleshed out across a couple paragraphs, but I don't think we should expect these people to be writing essays on us.

If anyone disagrees, by all means I'm willing to hear what you think.

yeah i was referring to single spaced...our personal statements at 4500 characters are one single spaced page which is a pretty decent amount of content so maybe a half page single-spaced sounds about right?