Getting recommendation letter from an Ivy professor? 4 questions

notjoe
Thu, 09 Oct 2014 12:44:00 +0000

@akova1,

Think it through. Of what use would be a letter of recommendation from someone you don’t know, and more importantly, doesn’t know you? The “who” of the letter is less important than the “what” of it. Not that “who” is entirely meaningless. If you actually knew a Harvard professor, and he or she had been your teacher or advisor on a project, or a close mentor, such a letter would probably be worth a great deal, provided the professor wrote well of you. But what they write is more important than who they are.

The best letters of recommendation will come from folks who actually taught you, and who characterize you with superlatives, like, “best student I ever had,” or “strongest math abilities I ever saw,” or “incomparable skill at [fill in the blank].” Good candidates for letter writing will especially include teachers who teach you more than one course, and/or those who also work with you on other activities outside your curriculum.

Testimony to your decency as a human being also helps.

While my older son probably got into Harvard based on comments from his letter writers like, “best student I’ve had in 30 years,” “strongest classics student I’ve ever taught, already functioning, in some ways, at a grad school level,” my younger son probably got into Harvard because of a letter that related a short anecdote. Early in his senior year, my son saw a fellow student in distress, someone with whom he’d never gotten along, and for whom he really had no use. Privately, he arranged to make available significant, long-term assistance for the fellow student, in a way that would have put a crimp in my son’s life for the remainder of the school year. The letter writer was aware of this, and wrote about it in his letter of recommendation.

I wouldn’t worry too much about the fact that your teachers don’t write many letters of recommendation. Your consultant, if he’s worth anything near what he’s being paid, can provide an outline for your letter writers to follow. But you must select folks with whom you’ve formed a good, constructive relationship, and who have seen your best side, and are enthusiastic to tell others about it.