How to Ask for LOR

[Mrxle3]

How did everyone go about requesting professors to write your letter of recs? I come from a UC school (very large class sizes, very hard for Professor's to remember my name since I'm only one of their 500+ students). I just e-mailed my genetics professor requesting a LOR, and she said that she only writes for her TA's =(. Any replies are welcome!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[syn_apse]

tip #1 -- never email a request

 

[Mrxle3]

Unfortunately, I'm out of town and cannot request in person.

 

[dino_flagellate]

i'm out of town too. one of my prof is being lazy about it . i e-mailed him once, either he didn't get it, or he's being an a hole . i'm in a tricky situation, it's been about a week and a half since my e-mail, should i e-mail him again, and if so, what should i say? can you guys give me an example of something to write?

btw, the a hole prof has all my stuff to write the LOR, but no contact has been made, i just dropped it off by his office . do you think he has a new e-mail address? think i could contact the school and find this out?

and as for the op - i tried so many prof and got turned down , the trick is to keep trying, and ask others, eventually you'll get two from sci profs.

e-mail them, and see if you can make an appointment to see them, if you can get back into town, if not, then it's kind of hard, but see if you could personalize yourself through the phone or e-mail (even though it's much better to try set up an appointment!)

Good Luck, let us know what works out.

 

[dWiz]

How did everyone go about requesting professors to write your letter of recs? I come from a UC school (very large class sizes, very hard for Professor's to remember my name since I'm only one of their 500+ students). I just e-mailed my genetics professor requesting a LOR, and she said that she only writes for her TA's =(. Any replies are welcome!

it depends on prof.'s personality, one said sure yeah I'll do it , no problem, a different professor said,"I don't know you, what am I going to say about you, please ask somebody else." But after a little pleading, she agreed , when I told her that I would give her a resume, personal stmt, and other stuff to help her, this was despite having an A in her class. This whole get to know the professors can get really annoying, i mean who has the time?!! There's always this one guy who likes to lick every professors ass, I think even they get annoyed of him

 

[GoGatorsDMD]

Don't be a douchebag and ask a professor for LOR who does not know you. At UF some of them will write "Although I don't know johnny at all, he was #20 in my class and showed up most of the time"

If you're planning on asking for a letter, go to office hours and get to know them, and let them get to know you.

 

[JeanetteYu]

Don't be a douchebag and ask a professor for LOR who does not know you. At UF some of them will write "Although I don't know johnny at all, he was #20 in my class and showed up most of the time"

If you're planning on asking for a letter, go to office hours and get to know them, and let them get to know you.

I'd agree with you. It's best to get to know the professor before asking for a LOR. Otherwise you're going to get nothing better than, "____ got an A in my class." The LOR wouldn't be a strong one and I'm pretty sure dental schools seen plenty of those.

Even if you think you don't need help with anything, go to office hours anyway and explain what you know to the professor. He'll be impressed and you'll get to know the professors.

 

[Mayo123]

Well, there was one professor whose office hours I went to every week and I felt like I got to know her better than my other science professors. I got an A in her class, and she even said that I was a really responsible student, etc...but when I went to ask her for a letter, I literally had to beg her. Some professors just don't like writing them because they're so caught up with their own research, etc...It really was a mistake asking her. I started emailing her to make an appointment in February. I didn't get in to see her until the beginning of April and at at the beginning of June, she STILL hadn't written it....so I started bugging her every day for the first week of June (she told me to keep bugging her to remind her). She ended up writing it but got really annoyed with me for coming to her office to bug her (although she told me to bug her).As soon as I left her office, I was bawling (which was stupid for me to have done...I shouldn't have taken it so personally).

Anyways, my point is that I did what I needed to do to get the letter on time and she made me feel like a pest despite the fact that I deserved that letter...and I gave her plenty of time and space to write it. I just thought I'd tell this story in case some of you ever get in this situation. Don't take it personally like I did...and don't be afraid to push when you really need the letter.

Well, hopefully none of your professors are as mean. sorry for the tangent.

 

[Mrxle3]

Thank you for your post Mayo =). This is almost like the situation I am in right now!