Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Recommendation Letters- General vs. Specific?

KelsoK13KelsoK13 Alum Member
in General 21 karma
Does it hurt your application if you only provide general letters of recommendation that don't mention the school specifically? I am applying to a lot of schools, because I am trying to go to law school in the same city as my fiancee who is matching with a residency program. He has to apply to a lot of different cities to ensure a match. I have a strong LSAT score and a strong gpa. I have lined up two of my letter writers, but I don't want to ask them to write a letter for each of the individual schools that I am applying to as it will be a lot. Any thoughts?

Comments

  • c.janson35c.janson35 Free Trial Inactive Sage Inactive ⭐
    2398 karma
    A general letter written specifically is always better than a specific/targeted letter written generally. As long as your reccommender can honestly and meaningfully speak to your strengths you'll be good!
  • PacificoPacifico Alum Inactive ⭐
    8021 karma
    @c.janson35 nailed it with his first sentence. Only a handful of schools really like the targeted letters enough to make a difference anyways so it's not going to be that big a deal and it's definitely more of a pain to get a recommender to target letters for multiple schools. Just make sure you can get excellent letters and you'll be good to go.
  • jaredj229jaredj229 Alum Member
    110 karma
    Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that the Credential Assembly Service included your letters of recommendation in the file they send to each of the schools to which you're applying. My understanding, just based on a quick read through of the process, was that you send them a general letter and they will then send copies of it out on your behalf.
  • c.janson35c.janson35 Free Trial Inactive Sage Inactive ⭐
    2398 karma
    @jaredj229 on your LSAC account you choose which letters you want to assign to which applications. Also, when submitting the request electronically to your recommenders, you can label each of them in order to keep track of which letter is which
  • PacificoPacifico Alum Inactive ⭐
    8021 karma
    Once again @c.janson35 is absolutely correct. To illustrate his point you could have five LORs and you could rank them 1-5 by your preference and name them accordingly so you know that the best ones are going out first. Or you might have two general ones for all schools and then one each for HYS and so you can make sure those are all properly labeled so that you don't send the wrong one to the wrong school.
Sign In or Register to comment.