How long it too long LOR

Question

one of my recommender just came back to me with this question .. this person has written 6 pages

.. donno what is trying to explain there.. but is this too long or it is ok to have such a lengthy LOR?

billyjeans · Answer

How do you get your recommender to write 6 pages (3600 words)? hehe
I couldn't write that many words if I were to recommend myself.

I think the limitation is 2 to 4 pages.

jankynoname · Answer

one of my recommenders also wrote 6 pages. i think it's fine, especially if it's a school which asks for responses to several specific questions. those responses can often take two paragraphs to explain, so it ends up being quite lengthy. i'm sure that the adcoms are good a filtering out stuff that they care to read about from the background noise. i don't think it can hurt you to have a longer letter.

tuck20xx · Answer

.

rao · Answer

thanks guys! thanks for your excelent inputs...

I agree with you inthat some schools ask for 5-6 questions and excepts examples for each one of them ... I think it become tough for recommenders to put example and concise it in 2-3 pages.

2012dreams · Answer

hmm, what are you doing with a letter that long for recs that have word limits? (maybe this doesn't apply to you)

i was definitely going to tell my recommenders to aim for 2pgs tops

rao · Answer

Humm ... I havn;t seen anybody putting limit for LOR

rhyme · Answer

one of mine hit 11.

I wouldn't sweat it.

billyjeans · Answer

I am speechless.

PatrickBateman · Answer

If I were an adcom, and I saw a super-long recommendation letter (e.g., >4 pages) I would seriously doubt the ability of the recommender to synthesize information.

Furthermore, I would also plan to spend the same time on each reco (e.g., 60 seconds, 120 seconds, whatever). Thus, the longer the reco would mean that I would simply skim more.

In my opinion, a super-long reco doesn't necessarily hurt you, but it doesn't help you as much as a succinct, powerful, well-thought out and edited 2 page reco (e.g., one that they will actually read/skim vs. super-skim).

2012dreams · Answer

HBS has word limits on the essay questions they ask.

random, are people just using on letter that basically covers all the questions asked on for each app, or are your recommenders writing a long letter for each school? sorry, we don't have any MBA's at my office, so I need to give them as much information as possible

How long it too long LOR

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