Letter of rec advice?

[Grumpy Bear]

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What with my AMCAS still in line to be verified, I have too much time to fret over the rest of my application, and am beginning to get very worried about one of my letters of rec. I worked in my letter writer's lab for two years in college. I was her first undergraduate research assitant, and also did an honors thesis project with her. The problem is that she's a bit inscrutable, and while I feel like I've done some of my best work under her tutelage, she seemed possibly unenthusiastic about writing the letter. I know that she was somewhat frustrated with the outcome of my honors thesis experiment, but I can't imagine that she would hold that against me, since many of the techniques were new to both of us and a lot of the frustration came from the unpredictability of the mice we were using in behavioral experiments. She is now fairly significantly late in getting my letter in to the premed commitee at my school and I am increasingly worried that her letter might be 'bad'. I really have no idea what to expect. I did hear from another student that she has written 'form letters' for recommendations in the past, in which she merely fills in a couple of identifying details into a pre-written letter. I have a feeling that this would be pretty awful. At the same time, it's now decidedly late in the process, I don't really have any other good prospects for letter writers, and I can't imagine not getting a letter from someone I did such extensive work with. I realize this is getting long so i'll wrap up 😀 I kind of want to call to feel out the situation and get an idea of her timeline for sending it, but I'm both nervous to do so, and not sure if this is appropriate. how should I handle this? Ack Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

[ASDIC]

that is very disapointing to be in a situation like that. it is better to have a neutral LOR rather than a bad one. so if u cannot get anymore good LORs, dont fret, be happy in not including the bad LOR. I was in the same situation as u are in rite now. I did some research on medical ethics under a prof. and we had good terms and good relationship between us.
However, in my school all profs are anonymously surveyed by the class at the end of the semester on how good they are and she got some very bad ratings. So as i approached her for an LOR, she started complaining on how she didnt get any "positive feedback" from the class and she was very angry at the class for giving her a bad rating. When i heard that, i decided to withdraw the LOR from her. I think that i am now better off getting another LOR rather than getting a bad LOR.

 

[AverageMan]

Ask your pre-med committee advisor if your recommendations are good. You can't see your recs, but the advisor shouldn't have a problem just saying "Don't worry about them, they're good". At least that's what mine did.

 

[Grumpy Bear]

Thanks for the advice, guys. My rec writer hasn't sent the rec in to my premed commitee yet (and probably hasn't written it yet, I'm assuming). Considering that the 'damage' isn't yet done, should I try to contact her to see what's up? Alternatively, is it dangerously late to ask a prof that doesn't really know me very well to write a rec in her place?

 

[ASDIC]

hi grumpy,
dont contact ur prof; its not worth it. further, its upto to u to solicit any extra LORs. try getting LORs from ur EC supervisors, healthcare folks etc. some schools require a certain number if LORs, if u have reached this minimum, dont scramble for anymore.

 

[babyface]

Hey Grumpy,

I'm sorry to hear that your research advisor is so difficult.....I agree that you need to talk to her and try to gauge whether she'll be able to write you an outstanding recommendation or not. Two years of interaction is a lot, and you'll certainly be doing yourself a huge justice to just have her letter in your file. Besides, having to get some other writer for the LOR would delay your application quite a bit. Technically, it's not TOO late in the process, but you'll need to give the new person couple of weeks to compose it and so forth. And if you don't know the writer that closely, the best you can do is to get a somewhat so-so letter anyways, which is where we are with the original writer.

If I were you, I'd have a talk with your research PI and tell her that you really need to get your letters in ASAP, that you understand she is a very busy person. And if needed, you'd be more than happy to draft up a letter for her to edit and sign. That way, you'll know what the basis of the letter would be and at the same time, ensure that you'll have the letter soon. This kind of practice is quite common: that you end up writing a LOR for yourself just to have someone else sign it, really! Thank Goodness I haven't needed to do it yet......