Letters of Recommendation Addendum

savpunch

I've read a few discussions already regarding a vaguely similar situation, but just wanted some advice re my specific circumstance.

So, I completed my entire undergrad degree remotely and did not engage much with any of my professors. I could not pick any of them out of a lineup due to the asynchronous nature of online learning. Given this, I have considered asking a couple of my dual enrollment professors from my senior year of high school who know me quite well and could write a genuine LOR.

As for my third LOR, I was living in London and working full-time at PwC during my undergrad studies, so I am going to ask a colleague.

Any advice regarding this situation? Would an addendum do more harm than good? I.e., bring attention to my lack of relations with undergrad professors.

Oneofsixatninezerofive

I'm definitely not qualified to be answering this so take this with a grain of salt... I think, especially if your degree was writing intensive, it would still be beneficial to ask one of your professors from your actual undergraduate institution. The worst case scenario is that they say no, and the best case scenario is that they write you a letter that details your academic prowess (hopefully) and discusses how you were online so they did not know you personally. Sadly, this is just a reflection of you taking all of your courses online, not really that you did not go to office hours of try to get to know the professors. If you took four years to complete your undergraduate degree, and you are applying either straight out of that undergraduate degree or beyond, you’re talking about asking the law school admissions to consider a letter for someone that you had years ago -- and that is not necessarily a reflection of your work ethic or academic prowess now (and especially not rigor). I would consider, if possible, having two work references and one academic reference. I would also recommend getting a supervisor to write at least one of these letters. It is always better to have someone that oversaw your work directly rather than a colleague commenting on your abilities while not having direct access to what you did for PWC. I personally do not think that an addendum would be necessary either.

savpunch

Thanks so much for your input! Really appreciate you taking the time to write this out.

darman45

I agree with Oneofsixatninezerofive. I don't have the exact same situation as you do, but we have a few similarities. Covid hit in the middle of my undergrad, which was all huge pre-med classes, anyway. So I have also felt a little worried about asking for letters of rec from professors who I think either don't remember me, or just don't think I was a shining star out of the hundreds of students they taught each semester on zoom.

I spoke to a few people about this who all gave me the same advice: writing LOR is part of the job of any professor, so don't worry too much about feeling like you're burdening someone with the task of coming up with good things to say about you. I ended up emailing one of my old professors and asking for a LOR, and offering to hop on zoom with him to jog his memory about who I was, what I've been up to since graduating, and why I'm applying to law school. The call went great, to my immense surprise. It made me realize that my concerns about asking for a letter of rec weren't as thoughtful to others as they were to me. In other words, I think the reason that our zoom call went well is because I (1) offered to have the zoom in the first place and (2) let him know about all of the resources I could provide for him about myself if he did agree to write the letter. When he agreed, I made a zip file for him containing some of my old assignments, my law school resume, as much of my personal statements as possible, and a document that laid out who else was writing me a LOR, what perspective they could offer, and what perspective would be awesome for this professor to write about. I think that by doing all of this, it took some of the work off my professors' shoulders and also allowed me to be more confident that the letter he did write would be helpful for my application.

Back to what Oneofsixatninezerofive said, I definitely think it's worth reaching out to at least one of your professors from undergrad to ask for a LOR. Anything I've read on this topic all suggest that academic LORs are what admissions teams want to see - the only big exception to that is for applicants who are maybe 5 or more years out of school. If you do reach out to one of your old professors, I think being clear about the materials you are willing to send to them is super important, because it will allow them to understand how much of this LOR is riding on their memory/imagination, and how much of it you can help them come up with.

Re: the addendum, I'm not sure. I think you're right that it could cause more harm than good, because lots of people worry that their letters of rec aren't good enough. If you have reasoning beyond "I took classes online and didn't interact much with my professors beyond class time," then maybe the addendum could work. But if that's all the reasoning you have, I feel like it's not enough to warrant an addendum because you're competing against other applicants who have also taken a bunch of online classes due to covid.

Hope this helps and good luck!!

savpunch

Thank you so much! I am definitely going to take your advice!!!