Recommender Guide

Question

Ok, our attorney-in-residence tells me I won't get sued for posting this, so here you go.

My recommenders have found this quite helpful, and several Clubbers I've PMed it to have also been pleased.

I hope you all like it as well. Please note that this is written with me in mind, but much of it applies to all applicants/recos.

Good luck, gang. I hope you find this useful.

aaudetat · Answer

BTW - I thought I would include a list of items your recos might want to see, also from Montauk:

I did some of this myself, but not all:

â€¢  Deadlines 
â€¢  Copies of forms  and addresses if doing it by paper
â€¢  Copies of essays 
â€¢  Description of positioning strategy 
â€¢  Main points for each school 
â€¢ Samples of work
â€¢ Copies of evals
â€¢  Resume  and how activities relate to b-school
â€¢ Canned descriptions of stories
â€¢  Recommender Guide 

The stuff in bold is what I handed over. I didn't give them all the essays for each school, just a couple that i felt were particularly insightful.

luminos24 · Answer

a bit late in the game...but NICE!!!!!! thanx a lot...i hope i don't need to use it next year :wink:

lepium · Answer

great guide! I did something similar when coaching recommenders. 

Good work and thanks for sharing.
L.

GMATT73 · Answer

Just curious, is it possible for a recommender to edit her remarks after submitting (my application has not been submitted yet) ?

sweet_deals · Answer

Wow! This is extremely valuable. If I was to recommed someone, I'd want this resource. 
Thanks!

natalyaR · Answer

Thank you very much! This is very helpful!

bsd_lover · Answer

Someone should make it a sticky (if its not sticky already).

Praetorian · Answer

A lot of information can be obtained if members take the time to read the information and visit the links in the posts titled Announcement: XYZ 

We have taken a lot of care to organize the information in a logical (we think) way. Please take advantage of this. 

thanks

aaudetat · Answer

Praet:
I was thinking about ways to help new applicants find some of the stuff we posted - it might be helpful if the titles were more obvious. Instead of "Downloads," "Free Applicant Guides" might draw in more folks.

Praetorian · Answer

Good idea. Its done and its a sticky. 

thanks for the suggestion

kidderek · Answer

How about shading the announcements and stickys to a different color?

oldguru82 · Answer

anyone has an answer to this? I'm also interested

asimov · Answer

In general, once the recommendation is submitted, it can not be editted.

bschbound · Answer

I don't think any recommender will read such a long guide, let alone be able to make sense of it (if he/she is not familiar with MBA applications). After over a year of hanging out in forums and having gone through the application process myself, I wonder why applicants believe this stuff is useful. Why would you want to "position" yourself? Why not be yourself; surely, a pattern should appear if you are not a fickle person that never sticks to anything. Anything else is contrived and can fall apart. Worse, why would you want to mess with what your recommender thinks of you by concerning him or her with positioning, branding and the like. I find that other people are more aware of and can better articulate my positive qualities.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in coaching recommenders, but a 2-page introduction to a guide with additional documents? who has enough time to read that. A 30minute to 1 hour discussion of goals, strengths and weakness will probably suffice. A resume is definitely necessary; some writing samples of recommendations probably also a good idea because I find a lot of people don't know how to write a competitive recommendation. Just my thoughts. What do you guys think?

staind · Answer

I agree that meeting with the recommender directly would be more useful. Perhaps the guide should be discussed during the meeting. In my case, my recommenders are in a different country so I definitely plan on using the guide (after making my own edits). I definitely think 2 pages is a bit much.. I plan to condense it to 1 page. Also this guide talks a lot about how to write the letter when most apps don't require a letter but answers to specific questions.

resh · Answer

Just what I wanted.

My recommender has asked me to prepare a draft of the content to be included.
This helps.

tt11234 · Answer

thanks for sharing!!!!!!!

jb88 · Answer

Great stuff, forgot to say thanks awhile ago.

SS2010 · Answer

Is there a guide to select recommenders? I know the generic guidelines that one should have closely worked with the recommender etc etc but how important are their credentials and acheivements? Does anyone know if schools conduct background checks on the recommenders??

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