Recommendation Packages?

I was planning just to share resume, some writing tips (i'd love a link to any recommended tips) and maybe some bullet points on all the projects i worked on - especially for my old director.

Thoughts? Any general best practices on what to share with them? I do agree that most of their time should be put into putting together a well thought, well written rec.

Thanks,

Jamie

Jamie - At the risk of tooting my own horn, I offer you this:

https://www.gmatclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=41085.

cheers
aau

Haha, Aau, I have to admit, I did shameless copy good parts of that guide and used it in my intro letter, please forgive me

But yeah, since my recommenders are all novices at B-school recommendations, I went through each question of the recommender form and listed bullet points of my qualities and an EXAMPLE from work that they can talk about. What was the initial problem setup? How did I go about solving it? What was the quantifiable result?

So the "how to write guide" was a summary of Paul Bodine's last chapter on recommendations, that took 2-3 pages. Each school had about 5-8 questions, so each one I gave an example drawn from my work, and that took about 4 pages each, thus roughly 22 pages (with blank spaces here and there too).

The rest is just for reference, they can never look at it if they don't want to.

one of my recommenders is a b-school alumni. I asked her if she needed feedback.. she's like ..I know what to write.. concentrate on ur essays.
So that was good.
The other recommendation letter - I had to write the whole draft, recommender just made some edits, reviewed it.. changed and added minor points.
No sweat.

kryzak - man u went to kill a mosquito with a F-18 Hornet.
As long as it works!!!

well, one recommender asked me to write the draft for him, but I refused because it's against the honor code of Kellogg and Stanford, and I think Berkeley had a little check box at the bottom of their form saying "I attest that I wrote this letter myself" or something to that tune...

I didn't want to risk my chances at all from something this minor. Thus, you actually have to do MORE work giving your recommender talking points since you don't know which things they'll pick to write about.

Avi, I would make sure that you had someone else write your draft for your recommender or at least the style is very different. There are many books warning of the "sixth sense" of adcoms to sniff out similar writing styles from your essays to your rec letters if you write both.

We don't realize it, but we all have a unique style of writing. It goes beyond the kind of words we use and the kind of sentences we form. Every one of us thinks in one unique fashion .. and that shows. So, applicants who have been asked to write the recommendations themselves should consider picking other recommenders. Or at least get the recommendation written by someone else. If you write it on your own, it will show.

mneo and kryzak

Unfortunately one of my recommenders has flatly refused to write anything on his own and told me he has time constraints.

I will use this option of asking one of my friends to make the final draft - that is a good idea. Didn't think of it before.

yeah, I understand some recommenders are like that. one of mine was suggesting that until I explained how important the process is and showed him the Stanford honor code. I'm very happy that he believes in me enough to be willing to write all 4 recs, of course, with the prereq that I write the talking points in detail (thus the 47 pages of data).

Definitely let a friend re-write the rec letter for you in his own words, this way you won't jeopardize your chances if the adcom senses that you wrote your rec letters. I want to see you at UCLA admit weekend, remember!

I think if I gave 47 pages to my recommenders they would have backed out. Mine was detailed but I kept it short by using a lot of bullet points. I used aau's form as a great starting point and wrote my own similar to hers. I didn't want to overwhelm my recommenders and I have worked for both for 3+ years so I they know me very well.

47 pages? Hope all works out.

THanks, aaudetat. Just found the other post and it made my morning. Yet another way that gmat club has hooked it up.

sweet. good luck.