Choosing Stories for Your LORs
QUESTION:
When I am discussing my LOR with my recommender, is it a smart move to have
him or her include one of the stories from my essays? Or should I just let
him or her do their own thing and discuss completely different stories so the
adcom knows more about my background and accomplishments?
ANSWER:
The short answer here: Yes, you should be sure that your Letter of
Recommendation does talk about much of the stuff that is in your application.
After all, that is one of the only ways that the school will know that you
are telling the truth in your application. However, thereˆs a biiiit more to
it than that….
The longer answer: You must also be sure that your Letter of Recommendation
covers NEW stories that you havenˆt had a chance to cover yet in your
application. We tell all our clients that 70% of the letter of
recommendation will be covered in your app, and 30% will be brand new info.
Let me give you an example from my personal experience. When I applied to
HBS in 2003, I asked a former boss to write a rec for me. Later, after Iˆd
been accepted to HBS and Stanford GSB (among others), I read her LOR–and
what I saw surprised me. First of all, of course she corroborated my stories
– Yes, Jon was an analyst and was promoted. Yes, he ran valuations on a
number of big real estate properties. But also…I read that she called me
very FUNNY. Ha! Who knew? She remembered stories that I had long since
forgotten. I also read that she said I was the best analyst she had ever had.
I honestly had no idea that that was true, and I would never have thought to
even say that.
So whatˆs the moral of the story? No matter how great you assume your LOR
would be (should you write ¯em yourself) always let the recommender write it
for you. Always. Even if they are busy busy people with no time to sit down
and physically type the thing up…. find a way to get their actual thoughts
on paper. Because thatˆs what the adcoms want – their thoughts – so thatˆ
s what you should want, too. And while the LOR will cover many of your
stories, ideally there will always be MORE out there–the almighty 30%–that
they can also add to your application beyond the stories youˆve covered
already.
Hope this helps!
Jon Frank
HBS 2005
Founder Precision Essay
http://www.precisionessay.com
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