Is too good of a recommendation, bad?

IF everything was rated top2% that means you have no flaw. Your recommendation is biased and not taken seriously.

Are these percentile rankings typical of recommendation forms for most schools? This is a little disconcerting, for the same reason as the original post in this thread.

Not all schools use them, but they are still pretty typical.

Reco's are overrated. Besides, if your recommender can buttress his "top 2%" claims in the body of the recommendation, then everything should be square.

Plus if someone is top 2% in everything, why would he/she need to go to b-school?

That nails it right there.

The adcoms aren't going to look at a top 2% ranking and say "Oh, good he's in the top 2%!". It's just like your essays, you need to back up your claims with examples.

RF

I second that. One of my ex-bosses is a former HEC Paris MBA grad, and he was doing interviewing for the school. He told me specifically that when he saw that a recommender put top 2% in each category, it was a waste of opportunity to enhance the person's real strengths. He considered - rightly so - that that kind of assessment was rubbish. This doesn't mean that he stopped reading the recommendation completely or that he considered it to be completely useless; but it's definitively a wasted opportunity.

(hope this is clear)

I think it depends upon your employer and peer group. At my current job with a lest prestigous CPG company, I strongly believe I am in the top 2% of my peers in all categories. This doesn't mean I don't have any flaws, it is just a comparison versus my peer group. Also, out of my peer group, I will be the only one to pursue an MBA and move on to bigger and better things.

At my previous job with a top company, I still believe I am in the top 2% of my peer group. There were 8 of us in the same "class" and I strongly feel that I outperformed everyone.

I would call that "top 12.5%"

Hi All..

How will the adcom take it if there is a recommender who gives an equal mix of 5% 2% and 1% .. and nothing below that?

regds
S

He'll stop reading there and ding you.



Seriously, I think nobody can answer that question. But it's IMO better than giving only top marks.

I agree with this one. Rating everything as excellent will not highlight your particular strength.
Somebody MAY be top 2 % in everything... but I'm guessing (I don't know the truth, because I'm not an adcom) that perfect rating across the board affects how the recs are being looked at.

I agree that being ranked in the top 2% in nearly every category could be counter-productive. They may read it and think that the recommendation can't be taken seriously.

I actually had this happen for one of my recommendations: our company president (small company) did this for my rec, and showed me it after he had submitted. I thought that he had ranked me too high (I'm not top 2% in all but 2 areas, and top 5% in those two areas. I don't think anyone is). Then, on top of that, his written answers were glowing, but were pretty generic and lacked the examples and backup I was hoping for. Regardless, I got into 2 top-5 programs with those recommendations. So, while I agree that it's not ideal to be ranked so high that it may not be taken seriously, the bottom line is that it probably won't hurt your chances of getting in.

It seems like majority thinks that getting top/near-top ranks across the board is counter-productive.

Just to play devil's advocate:

I think that overall recommendations are inflated to begin with. Applicants are going to ask those people who they have some sort of relationships with to write their recs. You are going to choose the supervisor who you think is a good writer and believes that you are a solid performer. I think only in rare circumstances (having only one supervisor throughout all of your WE) will you potentially be stuck with a recommender who will not write you a glowing recommendation.

A recommendation isn't an objective essay, it is a written approval of your merits - the person writing it is supposed to be your cheerleader for getting into business school.

Combine the cheerleading nature of a recommendation and recommender choices that are biased toward favoring the applicant and you have a pool of inflated and biased opinions of applicants' performances. I don't think the inflation only occurs in the writing section of a recommendation. I bet it manifests itself all over the rankings as well. I think many recommendations have mostly top marks across the board.

With that said, if given a choice between getting top 2% with one or two slightly lower ranks and getting top 2% in a few categories and top 5-15% in most other categories, I would choose the former. When majority of the recs are inflated, I think being another one of the applicants with consistently high marks is better than being one of several applicants who don't have high marks in nearly every category.

Recommendations are kind of dumb anyway. I do agree that a good mix of top 2% and top 3-5% are probably best. But think of it this way...let's say that you're apply to Harvard and everyone there in a certain year is getting top 2% on everything while you're getting some that are slightly lower, etc. Either your recs would look more truthful (good thing) or you would look like you're a weaker candidate than everyone else (bad thing).

In any case, just mix it up with some at the top eschelon and some slightly below and that should be fine. I don't think the adcom really even looks at the recs anyway. If you think about it, what information is it really going to provide? They'll be some examples of leadership, examples where you worked hard, etc...but when you read thousands of applications, they'll all pretty much sound the same.

If you have a negative rec, I'm sure that can kill you so make sure that doesn't happen.

RVD.

If your recommender ranks you with an even mix of exceptional, outstanding, and good they can't (theoretically) give you an overall ranking of exceptional. I understand that quantitatively this could work out but it would look odd.