The past few days, I haven’t been writing much because of some entropy in my life. But I think it’s okay to say now that I’m heading back to a period of stability gradually again.
Anyways, on to the topic of this post…
I know the title of the post sounds a bit corny (sort of) because it’s obvious that every aspect of your graduate school application counts towards your chances of admission, right? I meannn that only makes sense, because why else would it be a requirement if it didn’t matter at all?
Thing is though, the different aspects of your application all important, still strengthen your application to different degrees.
It all boils down to the fact that because application pools are extremely competitive, the criteria that could get you selected instead of another candidate can vary.
Recommendation letters tend to be one of the application maker or breaker aspects of your grad school application. I don’t just mean any recommendation letter at all. If your application made it to the admission committee for review, then it’s certain that you must’ve submitted your recommendation letters. Or that your referees must’ve submitted their references (depending on the modus operandi of the school you’re applying to)
How recommendation letters can be so important in your grad school application will depend on the quality of the letter. By quality, I mean the content of the letter.
What is your referee saying inside the letter? “Okay” things, good things, excellent things? What are they talking about specifically?
Your referee can write you a great recommendation for a wrong program. That doesn’t make sense? But it does. I’ll explain.
For a lab research-intensive program, having a recommendation that focuses unnecessarily on extracurriculars like your political achievements will not do you any good. That is just for that particular program though. If you were applying to a more politically-inclined program, then perhaps, that same recommendation could be the key to your getting in.
This is simply emphasizing that you should “guide” your referees to write on your qualities and experiences that are tailored for that particular program. Just like how you can’t submit the same SOP (statement of purpose) for all the programs you apply to, it’ll be good to ask your professor to tailor your references for you for each of your applications.
I know how difficult asking professors to submit even the same recommendation for multiple applications is in itself. But this Hamza is asking you to further poke them to “tailor” the references for each application? Some nerve! I know. But you have to. If you can, of course. You know professors you can ask this of, and others you can’t. So do it based on your own judgement and assessment of your relationship with professors.
But here’s why I’m suggesting that you guide your professors to “tailor” the references.
See, some of the programs clearly tell you what they want your professors to address or evaluate in their letters. Knowing this, it’ll be good to discuss this with your professors to give them a clue of what to cover in their letters. I know that they’re seasonal reference writers and know how to write recommendations. But what they’re not is on the admission committee of the school you want to get into.
Some referees take their time to look at the program you’re applying for before they write their recommendation. In this case, you probably won’t need to “guide” them to write their reference. Other professors don’t do this though, so leaving it entirely up to them could result in an excellent reference for a wrong program.
