Letters of Recommendation and Evaluations

sallyawp
Sun, 30 Sep 2012 18:20:44 +0000

Yes, though I don’t work in an admissions office (and, therefore, have limited expertise in this area), I would say that 4-5 LORs and 2 evals is way too many. The people in admissions are reading thousands of applications. You want yours to stand out, but not because you were the candidate who went overboard by asking seemingly everyone you encountered to write you a letter of recommendation (at least that would be the exaggerated joke . . . ).

I recommend that you determine who are the 2-3 professors who know you and the quality of your work best. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you automatically go with a professor who taught three of your classes or who gave you an A. That means that you ask the professors who can say positive things about the quality of your work, your work ethic, and your character because they have spent time with you.

Who guides your honors thesis? For whom have you done research? What professor was impressed by your insights when you dropped by office hours on a regular basis? Who saw the way you think as you developed a term paper from concept to outline to research to completion?

The best recommendations are going to come from people who can share anecdotes and/or insights about you as a student and as a person – who can give color to what is an otherwise black and white and grey application. One comment of a completely personal nature (of course, which is compellingly positive) about you can be the thought that sticks in the admissions professionals’ minds. Ideally, the parts of your law school application that speak to who you are (primarily your recommendations and your personal statement) are the things that may make you shine in a pile of applicants with otherwise similar grades and LSAT scores. Think it through carefully.