recommendation letters; how bragging should they be?

[aleksander_karlsen]

Hi,

In terms of the letters of recommendations, how "forward" and bragging should the tone and language be? I read one letter that apparently had been successful in MBA Gamenplan (the book), and the tone and language was very forward; the recommendor wrote explicitly that the subject had been the best consultant he had ever worked with. Should one use this sort of language (best ever..), or should one be more realistic and down-to-earth? With my background (I am a Norwegian) I am not used to soo strong words. To be honest, when I read this letter of recommendation my first thought was that this sounded somewhat better than what I would suspect was the truth. At least, not every candidate at the ivy league schools can be the best consultant ever in McKinsey, BCG, etc.(then the schools could only take in a like 10-20 students every years) Do schools like Columbia, Harvard, and LBC indeed value such forward approaching letters?

Look forward to hearing from you:-)

Kind regards
Aleksander

[mbamission]

Hello Aleksander,
Thank you for your inquiry. I would discourage the use of superlatives, like "the best consultant ever" in a letter of recommendation unless it really is true. Of course, their assessment of you is subjective. I have seen recommenders select the "best" box in every category for candidate assessments, which can appear a bit suspect.
It may be very hard to believe that one person is in the top 5% of their peer group in every category. If your recommender makes choices like that in an attempt to help you, I might ask them to tone the language down and be a bit more "realistic" in their assessment. This is tricky, because the amount of guidance that you can provide to your recommenders will be based on your relationship with them. The bottom line is that superlatives like "the best ever" are not necessary when applying to business school! I hope that helps.

Sincerely,

Akiba Smith-Francis

MBA Mission

646-485-8844

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