GMAC introduces the common Letter of Recommendation this year

If you have gone through the MBA application process you would know how difficult it is to glean out letter of recommendations from supervisors given their busy schedule and work.

It is quite a task to get recommenders to submit recommendations on time, top that with different processes and questions for different schools and you are in a soup. Simply because your supervisors are doing you a favour and they don’t have the time to sit ,figure out and respond to different recommendation process for different schools.

Few applicants like the one here , even want to know the recommendation process and questions before hand so that she can inform the recommender and give her sufficient time to prepare the recommendations.

Well! GMAC has realized this problem and hence from this year it has introduced a common structure to the recommendation process. The aim is to have multiple schools adopt this so that recommenders have a consistent form to fill up for candidates applying to the various schools.

In GMAC’s own words in mba.com - “We understand that the business school application process can be overwhelming and sometimes stressful. That’s why GMAC is working with a group of leading business schools on an initiative to help reduce the burden of asking for - and submitting - letters of recommendation.”

So as a candidate you can share the common Letter of Recommendtion link with your recommender before hand to give him sufficient time to acclimatise with the process and formulate the recommendations.

So far 4 schools have agreed to adopt this , Michigan Ross, NYU Stern, Cornell Johnson, and Stanford GSB.

What the form includes

In the new form recommenders are asked to evaluate the candidate based on Achievement, Influence, People Skills, Personal qualities and Cognitive Abilities . Each of these is then broken down into sub headers e.g. Trustworthiness/Integrity, Adaptability/Resilience etc under Personal Qualities.

These are then followed by few broad questions to assess the candidate qualitatively.

Each of these questions have a 500 word limit

How does the performance of the applicant compare to that of other well qualified individuals in similar roles? (E.g. what are the applicant’s principal strengths?)
Describe the most important piece of constructive feedback you have given the applicant. Please detail the circumstances and the applicant’s response.
If you are a candidate and applying to the participating schools stated above, you can share this linkwith your recommenders to inform them on what they can expect.

This post first appeared in the ApplyMBA Blog


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