There is some good discussion currently taking place in the blogosphere with regards to the recommendations process for MBA applications. In light of this, we thought we’d offer a few thoughts to help guide those of you who are beginning to move forward with this aspect of the process.
Today’s entry focuses specifically on the theme of managing your recommenders. One of our prior entries (from April) covers the rules for selecting your recommenders.
Recommendations
One way to think about the role of recommendation letters is as providing a happy customer testimonial. Just as television advertisements often include the glowing statements of people who have used the product being promoted, recommendation letters provide an outside perspective to back up (or undermine) the claims you have made in your essays. Your role in this situation is to choose the best recommenders and provide them with the resources and preparation necessary to produce the most effective testimonial they can.
In many ways, recommendation letters are a test of your management abilities: the adcom will assume that the quality of the letters roughly reflects your ability to manage your superiors and the wisdom of your choice of recommenders. In many ways, this perception is accurate: producing quality recommendation letters may take significantly more time and energy that you would originally expect given that you (probably) will not be the one actually writing them. It is therefore important that you approach the process of choosing and managing your recommenders proactively and well before the application deadline.
Managing your recommenders
As we mentioned above, most applicants are surprised by how time-consuming the process of managing recommenders can be. Because your recommenders are likely quite busy, you should make the process as easy and painless as possible for them. You should first approach them several months before the deadline to ask if they would be willing to write you a letter of recommendation – this will provide them with the time to write and revise a high quality letter, despite their packed schedules.
Following that initial meeting, you should take steps to make sure that you and your recommender are on the same page. In addition to talking to them about the ideal recommendation letter, you should provide your recommenders with a number of materials about your background and candidacy. These materials should include your resume as a summary of your experiences, and your career goals essay to give them an idea of your career goals and reasons for seeking an MBA. You should also develop several documents specifically for your recommenders, such as a list of strengths and weaknesses they may want to discuss in their letter, a list of projects you have worked on together to serve as a memory aid, and a description of your target schools, explaining the qualities for which the schools are known and why you are interested in them. The information included in each of these documents will make the recommender’s job easier – something which they will appreciate and which will allow them to construct a letter that builds well upon your other application materials.
You should also monitor your recommenders’ progress after they have agreed to write a recommendation letter for you. While you certainly should not pester your recommenders, some applicants find that it is productive to establish a timeline with their recommenders to help keep them on task. Your recommender will need to know the order in which they should work on your recommendation letters and the date by which you would like to have submitted them.
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