Is three academic letters better than two?

mattbraich

I'm currently finishing a PhD program and applying to law school for next fall. Since most of the people I interact with are professors or aspiring professors, it can easily get at least two academic letters of recommendation. However, I'm not sure if I should stop there. So, my question is whether it would be better to have three academic letters of recommendation only or two academic letters plus one non-academic. It seems like most people go with the latter option, but that might be because undergrads tend not to have as strong of a relationship with the faculty as graduate students usually do. What's more, because I haven't had a non-academic job for over eight years, it's not exactly easy for me to get a solid non-academic reference. So, what do you guys think? Would three academic letters be better than two plus?

MissChanandler

Do you need to have three letters? I could be wrong, but I think a lot of schools only ask for two (and the third is optional). I think it would be better to have two really solid academic letters than have two really solid ones plus a meh one, but it sounds like you will get three pretty great letters. I'd say go for it! And I think an extra letter written by a professor who really knows you and can vouch for you will be much better than a letter from a supervisor at a job where you haven't worked for years.

mattbraich

Thanks for your response! My impression is that while many school do require only two, three is preferable. After all, it's one more way for them to learn more about you without going overboard.

Tom_Tango

If the school is asking for two recommendations, it's probably best to send two.

mattbraich

Interesting. So, fwiw, here's what the former dean of YLS admissions wrote on her blog a few years back: "I would strongly advise you to include at least TWO academic recommendations, if at all possible. And if you have the option of submitting a third work reference or a third academic reference (note that we only require two, so I emphasize the word OPTION), I would go with the latter."

MissChanandler

Absolutely!

_oshun1_

You could do 2 academic + 1 work. Or just 2 academic. No need for 3 academic LORs.

studyingandrestudying

I'm going with two academic letters.

Leah M B

I think it doesn't hurt to have 3 on file and you can choose later which to send to which schools. I had 3 letters (only 1 academic - I've been out of school a pretty long time) and typically only sent 2 to schools but would change them out depending on which ones I think would be best. You could always ask for 3 and decide later what you need. Or if for any reason you decide to re-apply, you could use the third to give them something fresh to read.

Bamboosprout

If you are privy to the information, try to figure out what each letter is generally about?
Most advice say that you want each letter to speak to a unique side of you, ideally. Of course, it doesn't hurt if they overlap and emphasize specific characteristics, but I think they want to hear more breadth than depth. Additionally, some schools look for different things in reference letters, so you can try to pick and match, so it's always good to have more.
So if you're talking about how many letters to put onto your LSAT profile, I would say as many as you can, comfortably, ask for. If you're talking about how many letters to assign to each school, take a look at what the school wants, but more is usually objectively better.

jhbm_nyc

An extra LOR is really useful to have in case you get waitlisted and want to send additional supporting materials to bolster your case.

lsatgirl-1

If you have three reference letters. Some schools say that, they may not even read the third one.