question about research letters...

[questinganswers]

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Hi everyone,

I had a quick question about getting letters from research pi's. I've heard that it's kind of a red flag to not have one if you've been at a lab for awhile. I've been working at one lab for ~1.5 year and have a letter from there, but right now I'm starting up a project at a different lab and am not sure if I need to have a letter from there too. Because everything's just starting up now (as the project will be my senior thesis and im a junior now), I won't have really gotten to know my pi too well by the time I start collecting more letters next semester, and think that it might be a little weak compared to my other one.

So, basically, is it fine to include only one 'research' letter, along with the standard set of academic letters if I've been involved in more than one lab?

Thanks for your time, hope I didn't waste too much of it 😳

 

[Drexon]

Professors that I've spoken to are happy to write letters for undergrads that do research for them. You're right about the fact that the PI can't write much about you at this particular moment because he/she doesn't know you well enough. However you can approach your new PI and schedule a meeting for them to get to know you better and to write you a letter of rec. It's important to ask your new pi if they can write you STRONG letter of rec and not just a regular normal one that he hands out for students from classes he/she teaches. If they feel that they can't write you a strong letter of recommendation at this particular moment then you have your answer [proceed at your own risk if you do decide to take their mediocre letter]

Best of luck