LOR Advice needed

[na1433]

Hi all. Recently I have been organizing my Letters of Recommendation. I am currently in a Masters program and I was recently told that putting my program director's letter of recommendation separate from my committee letter was wiser than including it in committee. I have had a history of poor undergraduate grades and had a large increase in GPA in my post-bach/masters program, and I had thought that including my program director's letter would reflect well on my academic improvement. Do you guys think it is better to include my program directors letter in my committee letter or should I get another professor at my Graduate Program to write me a letter for the committee and then have my program director send her letter to the application on its own? Thanks!

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[TakotsuboOkazaki]

I don't think it matters all that much, provided that the letters end up in the hands of the adcoms.

My school compiled all of my letters together into a "quiver".

I would go so far to say putting them all in one, easy to access location might save some headache for the schools!

 

[curbsideconsult]

Hi all. Recently I have been organizing my Letters of Recommendation. I am currently in a Masters program and I was recently told that putting my program director's letter of recommendation separate from my committee letter was wiser than including it in committee. I have had a history of poor undergraduate grades and had a large increase in GPA in my post-bach/masters program, and I had thought that including my program director's letter would reflect well on my academic improvement. Do you guys think it is better to include my program directors letter in my committee letter or should I get another professor at my Graduate Program to write me a letter for the committee and then have my program director send her letter to the application on its own? Thanks!

If I had it to do over again, I would have kept all of my super top notch LORs separate from my committee letter. I didn't realize until too late that though all the LORs given to the committee are attached to the committee letter when submitted to AMCAS, all of those letters count as ONE because it's attached to the committee letter. So you could have 16 LORs you gave to the committee, they write a letter for you based on those LORs, and then those 17 documents are attached together to count as one LOR submission on AMCAS. Obviously, don't give your committee letter writer 16 LORs, they'll hate you. Three to five is sufficient. I would say definitely have your program director submit separately with two caveats: 1) make sure she knows you well and can write you a good letter and 2) make sure the other prof at your program can attest to your improved work and grades so the committee can write about it.

I'm pretty sure adcoms don't read through the attached LORs on the committee letter as carefully as the committee letter itself, your PS, activities section, and secondaries. They probably skim through it, but since the important points are highlighted in the committee letter, what would be the point of them reading through the attached LORs? They have enough to read.