2.5 page recc letter

[labiche]

Is 2.5 pages for a well-crafted recc letter too long? I'm working on a draft to show a supervisor and am finding it difficult to squeeze in all of the things that business schools want recommenders to discuss, with anecdotes/examples...thx!

[MBAApply]

Depends on the school. For example, HBS has over the years whittled down the rec letters -- this year, it's just three questions with a 250-word limit for each question. They've only introduced word limits in the past few years (as have some other schools), which is a HUGE hint to keep it concise. They aren't going to wade through mountains of text.

Put yourself in their shoes. Each adcom looks over a couple hundred applications over a few months. They spend maybe 15-20 minutes on each application. If you were them, would you bother to take a close read when you see a rec letter that is chock full of really long text?

Alex Chu
alex@mbaapply.com
www.mbaapply.com
http://mbaapply.blogspot.com