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LOR from TAs who know me well vs Professors who don't?

WhatslsatWhatslsat Member
edited August 2020 in General 476 karma

Hi all,

I have four potential candidates I'd like to reach out to for LOR.

Two TAs (one from an elective course: leadership and resiliency i.e. not very hard, and the other was regular course)
and two Professors. Both very accomplished professors, one of the professors is the founder of the Public Policy school at UVA. I received A - for both classes the professors taught. All four taught different classes.

The professors don't know me particularly well, one class was a lecture with 120 students and the other class was a seminar with 15. On the other hand, I interacted with both TAs on a regular basis (many email exchanges, office visits, even study sessions over the phone during final exam period). The ratio for office visits was probably 3 to 1. Notably, I got a bad grade in my midterm for the class that non-elective TA taught but ended up doing really well at the end through many consultations with him and guidance he provided for my final paper and exam. I impressed both TAs and definitely have better, more in-depth relationship with them. I think they would write a stellar and very personal letter of recommendation and suspect that they will have much more substantive things to say about me than the professors.

So my question is,

Who do you think I should ask??

Do you think the admission officers would weigh a letter that has more depth and is written from a TA who knows/likes me but admittedly teach a not very challenging elective course? Or would they weigh a banal letter that sounds like other typical letters from well-known professors?

At the end of writing this I have decided to ask the other TA who taught a regular class but I still need to decide between my leadership class TA vs the two professors. I graduated a year ago and plan on submitting one or two LORs from my managers and supervisors.

Any thoughts/comments are greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

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