Will you get interviews with a bad LoR?

[clonoGnic]

By "bad" I mean anything short of effusive praise -- a LoR that is neutral, bland, or even outright negative. I have received a few II's so far but still have a lingering doubt about the strength of some of my letters. Could I have received interviews while having a poor recommendation? Or can I rest easy knowing that they're probably good? Can a poor LoR hurt me post-interview?

I can envision a scenario where I have a LoR that says something negative about me, and then I receive an interview (assuming the rest of my app is good enough) where they're trying to gauge my personality and see if the letter writer was correct or not.

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[efle]

A couple good recommendations and solid rest of your app will not be killed by a single "I didn't really know him that well, he got a B+" mediocre type letter. Honestly, they wouldn't have agreed to write you a letter that they knew was going to be an app killer unless they are evil incarnate. If they agreed to write it, your worst case scenario is that it was bland.

They'll already be gauging your personality at an interview regardless of letter quality.

 

[Silverflash]

I agree with the above; you can easily still get interviews with a cookie cutter / neutral LOR; I'm reasonably sure that one of mine fits that bill and I've had success thus far this cycle.

On the other hand, an actually negative LOR ("He's a poor student; doesn't pay attention in class; would not recommend" etc) very well could. These letters are extremely rare though, and I highly doubt you are one of the lucky few, especially if you've received interviews.