For people who are applying to many schools

Applying to 10-15 schools is unreasonable and counter-productive. Thats what I have heard from current students, alumni, MBA experts, and based on my apps so far,I think doing 4-5 good, solid, high-quality applications requires tremendous effort.
Most people I know are not/have not/will not apply to more than 5-6 schools. I would recommend that you just select 4-6 target schools and gun for them. That will maximize your application quality and increase your chances of getting in.

As far as recommendations go, you need 2 non-academic recos for most b-schools(thats what schools ask for if you have been out of school for more than 2-3 years). Once your recommender has done 1-2 recos for you, the rest can pretty much be cut-paste of original letters. So the amount of work required from referees peaks for the first couple of schools and then comes down significantly. But choose your recommenders wisely....they need to be people who know you well and would be willing to spend time and effort for you. If your COO is a busy person, choose a senior colleague or partner you have had significant intercation with.
You can also make their job easier by providing them with ample data/examples/stories etc before they start filling out the forms.

Hope this helps...

Don't think it would come across as impersonal, if the copy/pasted answers properly address the question(s) asked. The biggest risk is that the recommender answers questions only partially or too generally without specific examples. Then AdComs will sense that the recommender did not put a lot of effort into the reco and this may even reflect negatively on your application. As someone already mentioned, pick recommenders wisely. Better to have someone less senior who will do a proper job and knows you well in order to provide specific examples of why you are good at XYZ. Check out some additional advice on recommendation letters.

In fact, on GC somewhere, there is a Universal list of questions - I've made a list of this years questions ( recommender-questions-106197.html) that might be able to help you build that universal list.

Infact, I am thinking that perhaps, the best way to address it perhaps is to have the common recommendation form and say - look he/she thinks im good for any top tier school?


I've gone the path #2 - which is having 2 recommenders from each job but one being the primary one for my major schools (I'm currently setting up to apply for a lot of schools - just cannot help but avoid it for risk). Also, I did inform them early that #1/2 is way more work than #5 or so on.

Hey warrack,

Others have already given great answers,, but I'll just add my 2 cents:

I dont think that would matter...unless your recommender were to mention one school's name on another's form.

Other than that, for questions like, "what are the applicants strengths", "what would you like to change in the applicant", "give a leadership example", "comment on the applicant's interpersonal skills", the answers dont have to change between different schools, as long as they are replete with good realistic examples and data. Most schools have a good percentage of common questions.

One of my recommenders told me that he made a "master" letter based on all examples I had provided him with, and also based on questions asked by schools, ,,, and then used data from that letter to fill out the recommendations. Some schools had some peculiar questions, for which he had to chalk out new answers, but those were not significant in number.

In hindsight if I could do it over all again, I would have the recommender prepare answers to a master list of common questions and that way it would be easier on them.. So yes that approach makes prefect sense

It is a good question. I am not sure how this strategy would work: Prepare a master list of all the questions across all the schools being applied to. Then work on one MASTER REC and let the recommender copy paste or basically select from this list. One can always just replace the name of the school across all. Now I don't know if the school might detect this as being impersonal. The recs are easily the limiting factor in the # of schools one can apply to. Everything else is under your control, really.

Thanks KT that’s a good idea, but is there any chance the school knows that the same letter has been sent to many other schools? That would be embarrassing

Exactly! This is what I’m afraid of... thanks Mainhoon

Would love to hear more ideas from the experts

tmino & shr30 you both deserve Kudos, thanks...

Shukriya=)

I do agree with you mainhoon - in hindsight, creating a master document asking them to fill it out AND then (THIS IS A BIT TOUGH) requesting them to use the online forms and do some little last min correction/customization!

It's good to see the recos start dropping in as they have started now - just goto do my part and nail some tremendous essays

KT & Mainhoon,
I like your idea of master list, it's gonna make my Boss's life easy... really appreciated

shr30,
Well, it's "Shukran" in Arabic, I think "Shukriya" gives the same meaning in different language , Anyway, you're most welcome and good luck with your application.

Thanks again,
Yahya