importance of academic LORs 2-4 years out of UG
Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2014 1:04 pm
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https://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=224325
Business school is still school, but they heavily discourage the use of "academic" rather than workplace references.malleus discentium wrote:Good academic letters will always carry more weight than professional ones. Full stop. You're applying to school, after all.
I guess this is the crux of my question. What does constitutes "close to UG"? 1 year? 3 years? 5 Years?malleus discentium wrote:
As you get further from UG, which has the result of making good letters more difficult to procure for various reasons, it becomes less of a red flag if you don't have them (it is definitely a red flag if you can't get academic LORs and you're in/close to UG). If you can't get good academic letters, then you want professional ones that speak to the same abilities an academic one would: critical thinking, analytical ability, writing skills etc.
very wrong. you dont need a lor to explain your grades. your grades are your grades and if you dont have an academic lor it wont say less.malleus discentium wrote:Good academic letters will always carry more weight than professional ones. Full stop. You're applying to school, after all. To the extent that schools are about LORs at all, these are the ones they want.
As you get further from UG, which has the result of making good letters more difficult to procure for various reasons, it becomes less of a red flag if you don't have them (it is definitely a red flag if you can't get academic LORs and you're in/close to UG). If you can't get good academic letters, then you want professional ones that speak to the same abilities an academic one would: critical thinking, analytical ability, writing skills etc.
From this, I would say that at 2-4 years out of undergrad, you should get at least one academic LOR. And then the others as stellar LOR's from current employers.From Asha at Yale in an interview with AdmissionsDean.com:
"Academic references are going to carry the most weight. Period. Particularly if you have a weaker part of your application, you really need to have phenomenal academic references who are willing to vouch for your performance as a student. If you’ve been out of school for a few years, I would suggest going back to your college professors and seeing if anyone would be willing to write one for you. If you think you’re going to be out of school for a while before you apply to law school, then plan ahead and get some professors to write you letters of recommendations now and place them on file with your undergraduate institution or set up an LSDAS account and let LSAC store them for you for up to five years.
I think only as a last resort -- you’ve been out of school for 10 years, none of your college professors remember you, etc. -- only then should you seek out employer recommendations that will speak to the kinds of things that an academic reference will. So, you’d want your employer to address writing and analytical skill, your intellectual curiosity, etc. Obviously, the closer they can be to the legal field, the better it will be for you. So if you’ve been a paralegal in a law office or worked for a judge, then that might be helpful, again, as a last resort."
https://www.admissionsdean.com/research ... terview/16
I didn't say anything about using academic LORs to explain grades. And the fact that you, a single data point, did well without academic LORs proves nothing and certainly is not evidence that my comment is "very wrong." My proviso (which should've said "To the extent that schools care about LORs at all ) was not gratuitous: In most admissions scenarios, LORs are only important at the extremes. If you got into HYS without a single academic LOR I would be very surprised, but barring that, your anecdote does not confute, or even weaken, my point.fringles wrote:very wrong. you dont need a lor to explain your grades. your grades are your grades and if you dont have an academic lor it wont say less.malleus discentium wrote:Good academic letters will always carry more weight than professional ones. Full stop. You're applying to school, after all. To the extent that schools are about LORs at all, these are the ones they want.
As you get further from UG, which has the result of making good letters more difficult to procure for various reasons, it becomes less of a red flag if you don't have them (it is definitely a red flag if you can't get academic LORs and you're in/close to UG). If you can't get good academic letters, then you want professional ones that speak to the same abilities an academic one would: critical thinking, analytical ability, writing skills etc.
of course they can say a lot about how a student will perform in an academic setting. but i didnt have a single academic lor, i overperformed my numbers, and i feel pretty confident saying an extra academic lor would not have impressed my school's adcomm any more
But this isn't business school, it's law school.kartelite wrote:Business school is still school, but they heavily discourage the use of "academic" rather than workplace references.
I'm applying next cycle so it's cool.cron1834 wrote:Duder, when are your deadlines? It's getting pretty late with or without an academic LOR...
How much information did you send him? I'd operate under the assumption that he doesn't remember you well, unless you had a really good relationship with him while you were in school. So if, when you asked him for the LOR, you included info that he could use in the LOR (a sample of your work from the class, qualities about you/your work to jog his memory, etc.), I'd go ahead and use that LOR. If you didn't send him much information to go off, I'd assume the LOR is pretty generic - I'd probably still include it for schools that accept 3 LORs, but use the employer LORs for schools that only allow 2.dabigchina wrote:So update to the thread. I managed to snag an academic LOR. I'm kind of skeptical about if it's going to be good or not because I have a feeling he might not remember me (he was very insistent I send him an up to date photograph). So with that in mind, should I submit this thing or take my chances and just submit 2 employer ones?