Recommendation Issue / Question

[Guest]

To an Admissions Counselor:

I asked my direct supervisor to write me a recommendation and he/she stated that he/she would be happy to do so. This is the issue - my supervisor was just promoted and consequently has become even more busy than normal (I work in financial services). She has asked me to write a draft recommendation and that she will edit as necessary and sign it.

I recently attended an admissions fair and one of the admissions officers highly advised against this approach. My direct supervisor is the person most intimately aware of my contributions, and furthermore is an alumnus of my top choice school -i.e. he/she knows the school and the process.

What do I do? Should I try to get a recommendation from someone else? Should I go back to my recommender and ask if he/she would write the rec and that I would provide support materials or should I write a draft as he/she suggested and have him/her sign it?

I think option 2 would be ideal, but to be honest I think it is a reach given the specific circumstances of this situation.

I'm sure others have been in this situation before, especially in financial services -- I would really appreciate some advice!

Thanks in advice

[MBAApply]

Do whatever you can to:

(1) Make the recommender's job as easy as possible (i.e. feed them info), and

(2) Make sure the letter itself is written by the recommender.

Adcoms have 2,000+ words worth of your writing in the essays, plus 500 - 1,000 words worth of your writing in the application form (work history description, etc.). It's very hard to betray your own writing style - tone, cadence, word usage, etc.

Recommenders *do* have the time to help you out, but they don't have the time to write a nice letter if they are staring at a blank page. Feed them the info they need so that it won't take much time (i.e. a few hours to actually go through your material and submit the individual forms/letters for all the schools you're applying to).

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

[Guest]

Thanks Alex.