Not all Letters of Recommendation (LORs) are created equal.
Admissions officers have read enough of them by this point to understand when a recommender is and is not being genuine in their LOR. Many professors and managers just write an LOR because they didn’t want to say “no” when an applicant asked them to, and that is certainly not the feeling you want to come across in your own LOR.
If you are approaching your professors or managers to write LORs to include in your MBA or MS application, there are a few points you need to keep in mind about what makes for a truly outstanding LOR. If you can help your recommender include the four points outlined below in your LOR, you can send it in feeling safe.
1. Your LOR Should be Personal (For You)
Your recommender needs to include your name, and as many relevant details about your life, motivations, and passions as possible in your LOR. Managers and professors often have templates for LORs which they plug a student’s name into in order to save themselves time. This is fine, but they need to be sure to include details on your most outstanding qualities and achievements that prove that you are a capable graduate student and professional. The more personal an LOR is, the more an admissions officer can see that your recommender cares to take the time to write a good LOR, and the application will be more persuasive as a whole.
2. Your LOR Should be Personal (For the MBA or MS Program)
Whoever is writing your LOR needs to insert the name of the school, and the MBA program into their LOR. (Of course).
But it needs to get even more personalized for the school. When a recommender states that you are a good fit for an MBA program, and can give at least two good reasons why that program is also a good fit for you, it shows that the recommender has gone above and beyond their normal template, increasing the value of their recommendation. Ask your professor to mention specific clubs, organizations, or well known societies at the school in order to persuade the admissions officers that your professor genuinely knows what they’re talking about. Or ask your manager to mention specific projects you have worked on or other ways that you have made an impact on the organization you work for.
3. Your LOR Should Give Context by Ranking You
Admissions officers love it when your recommender can be extremely specific about how you compare to the other students they have encountered. Although your class rank, GPA, and test scores give admissions officers a great measure of your academic abilities, your recommender’s evaluation adds another layer of depth to your application.
A statement as simple as “Terry is easily within the top 3% of students I have ever encountered at National Cheng Chi University, and I believe he will rise to the top echelons of the student body at ________ University” goes a long way towards increasing your credibility, and giving admissions officers an additional dimension of comparison to consider while making their decision.
4. Your LOR Should Communicate Your Values
I write all the time about how important it is to convey your values and passions in your MBA application. Admissions officers get bored of reading bland essays and LORs over and over again, and want a story to understand about you as a person. Your professor’s LOR should help you to tell your story by touching on how you spend your time volunteering or doing creative things relevant to an MBA program outside of school. And your manager’s LOR should mention how you affected the team environment and make an impact during and after working hours. When your application tells the story of who you are through the eyes of multiple people, it makes you stand out from the crowd. It makes your story memorable, and “sticky” in the mind of admissions officers.
So the four points once again are that your LOR should 1) be personal for both you and 2) the MBA/MS program to which you are applying. 3) Your LOR should give admissions staff context by ranking you from your recommender’s perspective, and 4) your LOR should tell the story of your values.
If you would like help understanding additional ways in which you can optimize your LORs, and your MBA/MS application as a whole, please do not hesitate to contact me directly at transcendadmissions@gmail.com.