Foreign Company LOR

Question

Hi Guys & Gals,

Looking to collect recommendations soon for the upcoming application period. Have a bit of a predicament though that I was wondering if you have any experience that can relate. I left my job with Accenture in Feb 2010 and have since then moved to China and am currently working for a local PE shop. I started here around the end of March so that would put me almost at 4 months here.

I know most schools prefer a LOR from a current supervisor, but I really don't know if I should ask my supervisor here for a LOR. As this is a local firm, they don't speak English and the general practice here is to write your LOR yourself and then give it to them to sign off on - which to me suggests that it's not very ethical =x Not even sure how this will work for electronic submissions.

I should have enough people willing to bat for me from Accenture, but I was wondering if this would have a negative impact to my application? Would the Adcom question the validity of my current position?

Thanks and good luck to all!

Xiao

whiplash2411 · Answer

I'm not very experienced with this, but I don't think it should be a problem. And you can always explain the language difficulty in the additional essay if need arises.

refurb · Answer

Agreed. Lots of people don't get LOR from their current bosses. Explain it in an optional essay.

However, if you've got some kick-ass stuff you did at your current job that you want to talk about, you may want to get it backed-up by a LOR.

RF

randomwalk · Answer

To add on to the points refurb mentioned, in my personal opinion, LOR should be weighed on how much of relevant information it could give, rather than where it is coming from or even which language it is written. Infact, i have read in one of the schools websites that if your recommendation is in a different language you could get an official translator, get it translated and indicate that you have done so in the optional essay.
Given that your latest experience is different from consulting and it is in PE (which a lot of Bschools dig for), I am guessing your latest recommenders would be able to present a better and possibly much more interesting set of events to discuss. But you will be the best judge in terms of what set of events you would want to go in the LORs relative to other parts of the application. How you get the LOR should not be a deciding factor, what the content is should be.

xiao85yu · Answer

appreciate the feedback guys, i've decided to include them for now; if the language stuff gets too messy then i'll reevaluate.

btw, do any of you remember which application can be used for applying to multiple mba programs? (i think tuck is included in it too). I can't remember what the form's name is for the life of me.

Foreign Company LOR

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