Recommendation question Forum

[GriefBacon]

I'm 8+ years out of undergrad and haven't kept in touch with any of those professors, so I'm pretty outta luck with recommendations there. Which is probably fine, because I was a terrible student in undergrad.

I went back to school 4 years ago for a second B.A. Long story short, I was working full-time while going to school and got laid off mid-semester and immediately dropped out/moved cross-country for a new job...and still owe the university for the rest of my rent that semester -- which means my transcripts are being held. Obnoxious, since I had a 3.8 and was in my dept's honors program, but not the end of the world since it wouldn't count in terms of GPA anyway. (Yes, paying that off and getting that transcript included would be ideal, but I've lived barely above the poverty level since then, so it hasn't been possible).

I did have one professor from my second B.A. whose classes I did particularly well in and who really liked me. I had her for a lower level lit class where I excelled, for an honors seminar, she wrote a recommendation for an internship, and we'd also discussed her advising an independent research project I wanted to work on -- she only declined because of time commitments. Normally, she'd be a no-brainer for an LOR (minus the fact that I haven't kept in touch with her at all after disappearing from her class mid-semester). But I'm a little concerned about having an academic LOR for a school whose transcripts won't be in my application. Is that going to be a problem?


Note: I definitely have one former boss that I worked with for 5 years -- and who promoted me up from temp to management-- writing one, and most likely my two most recent bosses, both of whom will give very strong recommendations (and who I worked with in HR -- I'm primarily interested in employment/labor law). So I'm not in desperate need of good recommendations, just trying to figure out if not having an academic LOR is going to hurt me.

[cavalier1138]

If you can get an academic LOR, do it. And nix one of the two current/recent bosses if they're not working with you in significantly different capacities.