Ideal people for recommendation letters

Question

I graduated 2 years ago. I have been working since then. I generally have good relationship with my senior managers. I also had good relationship with my profs at university. Which are better senior managers or professors?

Narenn · Answer

Ideal recommender would be your direct supervisor as he/she will be in position to comment on your work. Professors are usually not preferred as they can't answers questions about your career goals or interaction with peers, etc. For more information, read article #30 and #31 (Best and Worst Recommenders & Recommendation in a B-School application) of GMATClub MBA guide which is available for free... https://gmatclub.com/forum/new-gmat-clu ... 23494.html

VantagePointMelody · Answer

Hi there,

I agree with the guidance above! Managers are always preferred over professors since the former can speak to your performance in a professional setting, how you've worked on your team and cross-functionally in your organization, your professional promise within your industry, etc. - which are all things the adcom is interested in learning about you as they evaluate your candidacy. In addition, your current manager will have more recent examples to share vs. a professor who interacted with you over 2 years ago. I always say that a college professor should be a "last resort" recommender choice if you have no better candidates in your professional network. The best recommender is someone who knows you well and has worked with you closely and recently.

I hope that helps! If you'd like to chat further about recommender planning or anything else related to the MBA application process, feel free to reach out to me directly at [email protected] Best of luck!

Kindly,
Melody

StratusDonna · Answer

Hands down- you want to develop those relationships with senior managers at your firm. Ideally your direct supervisor is writing one letter of recommendation and then a second can come from another senior person in your firm that can speak to your contributions. You might also consider someone from an extracurricular if you have great impact there and they were in a supervisory role. The definite third and last choice here would be looking at your professors at university. Generally speaking admissions committees are not impressed by hearing from your professors- they look at the transcript and the test scores to do that. They want the recommendation letters to speak to your professional impact so you are well served to go the corporate route on rec letters. And please WAIVE your rights to see them! Otherwise adcom might think you don't trust them- which somehow- rightly or wrongly- ends up reflecting rather poorly on you.

Ideal people for recommendation letters

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