Writing your own letter of rec

[premeddick]

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I recently asked a professor to write a letter of recommendation for me. She told me to write up a first draft and send it to her and she will edit it from there. Does anyone have any pointers for this? Should i remain conservative in my praise and hope she makes it sound better? If she doesn't it might sound kinda mediocre. Or should I go all out? And run the risk of her thinking it is too lofty? Does anyone have any experience with this?

 

[TCIrish03]

Go all out. I had to do this with the two PIs I've done research (still do) for. Apparently this is more common than I thought. In the case of lab directors and department heads, they would otherwise just pass the task of writing the letter off to their secretaries, who would end up just using a generic form anyway. The higher up the food chain in academia, the more common this is I suppose.

I recently asked a professor to write a letter of recommendation for me. She told me to write up a first draft and send it to her and she will edit it from there. Does anyone have any pointers for this? Should i remain conservative in my praise and hope she makes it sound better? If she doesn't it might sound kinda mediocre. Or should I go all out? And run the risk of her thinking it is too lofty? Does anyone have any experience with this?

 

[greg1184]

I second the idea of going all out. Most professors WILL edit them as they see fit. I did this for one of my professors, and he completely rewrote it into THE best letter of recommendation that I have.

 

[JimT30]

I have been asked to do this and I dont even have a clue where to start. Does anybody have a template or anything to go from?

 

[pirata]

I had one of my recommenders ask for this as well. What I ended up doing was drafting a series of "talking points" (1 or 2 sentences a piece, bulleted style, specific to my relationship with that person)...for me, this was easier (and allowed me to bring in specific detail) than writing a letter where I actually had to glow over myself.

 

[Tropicana100]

I recently asked a professor to write a letter of recommendation for me. She told me to write up a first draft and send it to her and she will edit it from there. Does anyone have any pointers for this? Should i remain conservative in my praise and hope she makes it sound better? If she doesn't it might sound kinda mediocre. Or should I go all out? And run the risk of her thinking it is too lofty? Does anyone have any experience with this?

I had to do this once. Start the first paragraph with the capacity in which the prof knows you. Then, talk about what you have accomplished, using hard evidence (projects, grade in the class, initiatives). Then talk about your qualities and personality, but be a bit more modest. Say what you're good at: determination, hardwork, creativity, but don't go off and say you're a genius or the best student my your prof's entire career, etc. End off with a paragraph saying "I highly recommend this applicant for yada yada. He/She would be a wonderful addition to your school." The prof will appreciate your effort to use proper formatting of a rec letter, even though it's not perfect. Good luck.

 

[WhiteCox]

37MCAT ~3.6 GPA. I am so smart and smooth. Yeeeah

 

[greg567]

I agree w. tropicana, start off with the nature of the prof's relationship to you, the duration of the relationship, and the grades you got or whatever.

Then you can go into anecdotes, like "his capacity to comprehend advanced sub atomic physics 299 was readily apparent in his insightful questions during my office hours"

You can also use the opportunity to have the letter resonate with topics or themes you stressed in the personal statement. Like, "his background as an astronaut brought a unique perspective to the class discussions" or something.

You can wrap it up by taking such anecdoes and synthesizing it into how together these skills indicate how awesome you will be in medical school and how have a high capacity for being awesome continuously etc. etc. 👍

(I have had to help my prof write letters for students in classes I TAed for as a grad student)

 

[premeddick]

On another note... I am trying to create an excel sheet with the things I need to keep track of during the admissions cycle. I have schools in the rows and I am trying to think of things to put in the columns (ie complete?, picture required?) Do you have anything to add?