Teachers and Letter of Recommendations

J Aranda

So I finished University back in 2012. I doubt any of my professors remember me, and even if they were able and willing, they couldn't give an honest account of me. I finished my Masters back in 2016, I have a Professor who says she'll write me a letter of recommendation, and she does remember me. I'm afraid her letter won't mean much because it doesn't seem anything that isn't your bachelors really matters? What should I do? I know I could get 2 letters of Reccomendation from my Masters program but I'm scared it won't be worth anything.

Thank you guys for your insight

Mellow_Z

I mentioned it in the other thread about LoR's, but a good recommendation from someone outside of UG > a bad letter from a professor who doesnt remember you from UG. A professor from your masters is still at least in academia, so that would be more than adequate imo.

akistotle

I agree with @Mellow_Z . Recommenders who don't know you won't be able to write good letters. Letters from Master's program professors are academic recommendations, and I think they will be equally good as letters from your undergraduate professors.

J Aranda

Good to know. My second question is, what should the ratio of professional/academic letters look like. I'm allowed to have 4 total for the University I'm aiming for. 2 Professional and 2 Academic, or could it easily be 3 Professional and 1 Academic?

Thank you

Alex

@akistotle said:
I agree with @Mellow_Z . Recommenders who don't know you won't be able to write good letters. Letters from Master's program professors are academic recommendations, and I think they will be equally good as letters from your undergraduate professors.
@akistotle said:
I agree with @Mellow_Z . Recommenders who don't know you won't be able to write good letters. Letters from Master's program professors are academic recommendations, and I think they will be equally good as letters from your undergraduate professors.

2 LORs from a masters program beats no academic letters. It's been 5 years since you've graduated, so one from an employer one would help too.

tringo335

I am 8 years out of UG and have one professor who I think could write an LOR for me but we haven't much stayed in touch. Would this be an issue? I'm sure he'd agree to it if asked but since we really haven't spoken very often in the past eight years and he can't speak to the person I am today I'm unsure if he'd be a good one to approach. He is the only professor I can think would write me a decent LOR though.

Alex

@tringo335 said:
I am 8 years out of UG and have one professor who I think could write an LOR for me but we haven't much stayed in touch. Would this be an issue? I'm sure he'd agree to it if asked but since we really haven't spoken very often in the past eight years and he can't speak to the person I am today I'm unsure if he'd be a good one to approach. He is the only professor I can think would write me a decent LOR though.

8 years out... I would try to get LORs from employers who would be willing to write you good LORS. They will more speak to who you are now. Admissions people understand that 8 years out is a long time and getting academic letters will be next to impossible for many.

It wouldn't be a problem per se, but I wouldn't except a great LOR from someone that you've haven't spoken to in 8 years.

Daniel.Sieradzki

Some great advice in this thread. While it is true that law schools prefer academic letters to employer letters, this diminishes the longer it has been since the applicant graduated. After five years, it becomes more understandable to primarily have employer letters. That being said, you should try to get at least one academic LOR.

As was mentioned above, a good Master's professor letter is better than a generic UG letter. Trust me, I have seen some bad ones online. Not bad in that they were negative, but bad in that they were super boring (e.g. "Sarah is a great student who will succeed in anything she tries.").

If you could submit four letters, 2 academic and 2 employer letters would be best. Now, if you know for a fact that one of the academic letters is not great and you have an awesome employer letter that is substantially different from the other employer letters, you could switch the academic letter for the employer letter. The danger of having three of the same type of letter is redundancy. If all of them just say that you are hardworking, punctual, and a great team player, that will get real boring by the third letter.

Another good piece of advice that helped me was having meetings with the recommenders. By having coffee with them, you can remind them of how you were as a student. Try to mention things you did in their class (e.g. great term paper, outstanding class presentation, etc.). Even if you can't meet them in person, maybe you could talk over Skype or schedule a phone meeting. In my experience, they are happy to help and want to write the best letter they can. Meeting with them, updating them on your status, letting them know about your passion for the law, and reminding them of you performance in their class, can really make a difference in the quality of the letter. Good luck!

Rigid Designator

No where have I seen it mentioned that UG LoRs are the preferred option over other Academic LoRs. So I see no reason to think they would look down on a Master's level LoR as compared to an UG one.