Recommendations (Read me first)

Ok question about the dreaded "weakness" questions asked in almost every reco letter:

My recommender said she would highlight that while I have good communication skills in my current role, b-school will prepare me for a broader set of communication skills.

And that currently, I take on too many projects and that I will learn more about prioritization at b-school.

Am not sure if these two are "acceptable" or if I should work with her to choose something else?

yeah, the weakness question is definitely something I would benefit from some other opinions as well...

dosa,
If preferrable tell the recommender not to venture into communication skills.

B-schools look for effective communicators. If that is an area of weakness, it might hurt u. One of my recommenders is a b-school alumni and she skipped that part, especially since I believe that my general communication skills do need improvement

Better to focus on the 2nd issue and keep communication skills or the lack of it untouched

So what's the word with not choosing immediate supervisors for recommendation letters?

I applied last year and it was a MAJOR PAIN to have my supervisor write one for me. Throughout last year, he acted like I owed him something BIG. And I had to bug him on the last day of every application to have him write it.

So, obviously, I don't want to use him. I'm using another more senior person who I backup when he is absent from work.

I'll explain that this person has a better feel for my work because I back him up immediately.

How much of a zinger is this on my application?

Do schools care whether the paper recommendation comes mailed from me or from the recommender himself?

Schools ask the recommenders to hand over the sealed envelopes to the applicants so that the applicants post the letters to the school

Is she showing that as a weakness?

These are the things that I think adcoms hate, since its the generic safe statement. Unless they go on to explain how that affects your performance negatively at times its not really a weakness. Saying he works to hard is not something they really would think is a weakness so why would they write about it.

Sigh, one of my recommenders is "mysterious" about his writing progress, saying "You will have it to review when it's ready". The other has been so busy at work that he is barely finishing the draft for my Stanford one by this weekend. I'm cutting it pretty close, darn it!

Kry, I found that timing is import. What I did is to send sms reminder on Friday night. That conveys them the sense of urgency, and they would be more willing to take up the task on weekend.

Another way is to remind when the boss is talking excitedly on Friday. When boss is excited or happy, he/she tends to take reco as an important thing to do.

Also request, when the boss is happy about the work u did.

With other recommenders, I ensured that reco mail from school reaches recommenders, immediately after I requested them for reco. That also conveys sense of urgency. If they get mail after say 2 weeks, they will take it easy. Now I have 1 reco ready each for MIT and Wharton R2 from my VP who has left the company

hope this helps.

one of my weaknesses in my recs is that i need to become more confident in myself and expressing my ideas. do you guys think that would raise any flags?

I agree River and based on the discussion with the recommender, she is more than willing to explain in greater detail about the "weaknesses" and also probably add that these can be addressed in a b-school environment.

Oh well...she is going to Maui for 2 weeks and she said she is going to draft my reco there

Dude you can totally spin that in your essays for Chicago. They specifically talked about that during the LEAD presentation. Just make sure you also bring it up in your essays, self awareness will get you lots of points and so will mentioning something specific to their program that will help overcome that weakness.

thanks auro. Let's see what the Stanford rec looks like this weekend when one of my recommenders send it to me. Then I need to get him to really work on it next week otherwise we won't make it!

Is it a valid excuse to say that I didn't have my supervisor write me a rec letter because I didn't want my bonus to get affected?

Similar problem here. I am almost sure that taking reco will affect next year salary hike. But I risked it and asked for reco from supervisor.

I fear Bonus many not be a strong enough reason.