Letter of Recommendation

The author of my admissions reference book, Ann Levine, had a blog talk radio show about tips for non-traditional applicants. There was a lengthy discussion about how people who have been out of school for a few years go about getting letters of recommendation. You can listen to the show (I linked to it above) to see what her panel had to say about their letters. I'll tell you about mine right now.

I have requested two LOR. One was from my graduate school research adviser. We worked very closely for 4 years so he knows me very well. I asked him to address a few things in his letter. I wanted his letter to be the graduate school experience piece of my application. I asked him to discuss the sophistication of my laser experiments (I did degenerate four wave mixing experiments with a femtosecond laser system in case you were wondering). I also asked him to mention the impact factor of the journal that published my papers. (Again, in case you were wondering I have a communication in JACS, three papers in JPC journals (2 in B and 1 in C), and one in Applied Physics.) There were a few other things I asked him to mention as well. I got lucky and caught him between trips to Europe. He got his letter in quickly. It took LSAC about a week to process it. He told me he tried to make it strong. Let's hope he was successful.

My second letter is coming from my old manager. She's only my old manager because she was promoted. I mentioned before that I was a little uneasy about asking her for a letter, but she was very supportive when we talked about it. Everybody moves on to other things, she told me. She still hasn't written her letter, but I'm hoping she took care of it on her way to China this week. I'll remind her that I need it by early September when she gets back next week. I also asked her to address a few topics. I'm going to law school to help me reach a leadership position in the pharmaceutical industry. I will be addressing that in my personal statement (after weeks of trying, I think I finally have a topic that will let me get to my ambitions in a way that tells the adcoms about me) and I want to make sure that there is an informed opinion that will support my ability to achieve that ambition.