Like a few other posters I've seen, I really just don't know the majority of my professors. I've maintained a pretty good GPA, but I've done it almost entirely without having the need to attend office hours. As a consequence, I'm afraid that just about any professor I'd ask at this point would end up writing a fairly generic LOR along the lines of a few I've seen here ("We did X in class. Vexed got an A in said class.").
That being said, I have devoted a significant amount of my time to participation on my university's debate team. The type of debate I compete in is fairly rigorous in terms of academic research and analysis, and I have been receiving class credit for my participation every semester I've attended my uni. Both of my coaches also serve as professors in other capacities with the university. I'm 100% confident that my best possible LOR's at this point would be from them, but I also know that the traditional TLS stance is that admission officers want LOR's that speak to my academic potential visa vis actual classes, which I'm not sure my debate participation would be perceived as. I also know that they would like to see some diversity in where LOR's come from, and while I'm confident both of my coaches would write letters from fairly different perspectives, they would still both be speaking to their experience with me in functionally the same capacity.
Another option I've considered is taking a class in the upcoming fall semester with a professor I've previously had, visit them for a few office hours sessions, and then ask for a LOR. This may not necessarily work out (our fall class schedule has yet to be released, for all I know all of my previous professors are simply re-teaching old courses or are no longer with the university), but my fear with this route would be that the time it would take to get my professor to know me enough to write a solid LOR, and subsequently write said LOR, I'd be behind the curve in terms of applying early. I'd consider working on a professor I have now, but unfortunately I backloaded my general studies requirements, so this semester is full of 100-level classes with multiple hundreds of people covering very basic courses, so I'm afraid it would probably result in a pretty generic/bad LOR.
So, TLS, I guess my options are: (1) Go ahead with 2 very good, but possibly very similar LOR's from my coaches, (2) Use 1 LOR from my coaches, work on a professor in the fall and miss out on applying early, (3) Bite the bullet and go with 1 coach LOR and likely a very bad LOR from a previous professor.
I've also worked 30+ hrs a week to pay my way through uni, but it's retail and I'm pretty sure a LOR from my non-HS grad manager at my PT job might be worse than a generic LOR from a professor.
Thoughts?
(Yes, I know TLS wisdom: LSAT + GPA, the rest only marginally matters... I'd still like to cover my backside on applications to those schools where I am at the margins
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