Such thing as too many LORs?

[Cheeezcake]

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I'm wondering if there's such a thing as too many (quality) LORS? I can submit up to 7-8 individual letters from unrelated people who know me well and can speak highly of me (e.g. professors, adviser, coach, manager, doctor, PI), but would this be necessarily a good thing? If I was aiming for a top school, would they prefer to just see 3-4 of your absolute best references?

 

[puahate]

For individual letters? Yeah. Just send what the school's ask for. For the committee letter, this is based on your school. I had about 6 letters in my committee letter.

 

[gyngyn]

Check the MSAR for the specific requirements at each school (if you don't have a committee letter).
If a school says "no more than 4 letters," they mean it!

 

[Gilakend]

Check the MSAR for the specific requirements at each school (if you don't have a committee letter).
If a school says "no more than 4 letters, they mean it!

I think OP means if a school says “you can submit up to 8 letters” (mayo says you can submit up to 10) is it necessarily beneficial to submit 8 letters assuming they are all strong.

 

[Lucca]

like @gyngyn said, don't send more letters than a school specifies as their maximum allowed number. That said, you dont have to send all of your LORs to each and every school. You can pick and choose which schools will receive which letters. So if you do happen to have a lot of potentially great writers to choose from, I'd say get as many as offer to do it for you on Interfolio and then pick and choose which go where depending on different school requirements / general feeling about which letters might help you the most at certain schools if applicable. Dont feel pressured to send the max number of letters either.