Letter of Recommendation evaluation Forum

[lavenderb181]

I've heard from friends at other universities about having letters of rec "evaluated" by a dean so as to only submit the best ones. For example, my friend has several recommendation letters on file and just had to submit one for something (not law school) and a dean read them all and told her which one, in his opinion, was the strongest.
Is this normal? I've never heard of this happening at my alma mater but could be very useful for law school admission purposes.

[suzige]

I've never heard of this specifically... It's interesting though. I could see it helping to have the oversight and hurting if a prof doesn't like someone looking over their shoulder. The only thing I can think of that even remotely compares is how my school has a committee for pre dent students to go through to apply for dent school. They compile their letters and write one on the students' behalf from the whole committee. Other than that, never heard of it.

[lavenderb181]

Relatedly - is it possible for prelaw deans (aka the people who are listed along w/ their contact info on LSAC from your UG...) to read your recommendation letters if you ask them? Or more likely this is only possible for LOR services at one's university...

[Corwin]

I think the biggest issue you'll find with this is making sure the writers are ok with their letters being shared with a 3rd party. It's a very interesting idea though. I'm surprised a dean would be willing to take the time to do that.