Recommendations

An old professor of mine, who is providing recommendations for me, shared an interesting story with me yesterday which got me thinking about recommendations. He said that he applied to 9 different graduate schools and got rejected from 8 of the 9 come to find out that one of his recommendations was really bad. He said it wasn't until he was accepted into a graduate program that he found out about his bad rec. Someone from the department actually told him about it and let him read it.

Another one of my professors said she had a friend who received a very short anonymous phone call stating "one of your recommendations is bad," before hanging up very quickly. Regardless, I have full faith that all of my recommendations are very positive and accurately describe my academic abilities.

However, the recommendation process alone can be daunting and scary, even if you know you have great recs.

asking is the worst part

Asking is the worst part. Currently I have two professors who have provided me with recommendations for a scholarship and my Clemson application. I will definitely continue to ask them for recommendations for UNC-Wilmington and UNC-Charlotte.

The scary part is actually asking for recommendations. I got lucky with my first two professors. A year ago I went to an old professor and said I had a question. Before I even asked the question he said "yes, I will write a recommendation for you." Now, that wasn't even my question but it was reassuring and really great to hear.

My second professor had office hours that I regularly went to last semester. One day I was talking about grad school and she asked if I needed a recommendation. Again, it was nice to have the tables turned and not actually have to come out and ask for a rec.

Unfortunately, UNC-Wilmington and UNC-Charlotte want 3 letters of recommendation (Clemson only wanted 2). I have to ask the dreaded "recommendation" question. There are 4 potential faculty members who I would love to have write me a recommendation. Without naming names I will briefly describe them below (in no particular order).

Faculty #1
He has a Ph.D.
I took 2 classes with him.
I made an A in each class.
We have a pretty good student/teacher relationship.
I talked a lot in class.
He will definitely want an explanation for my reasons for grad school before agreeing to provide a rec.

Faculty #2
He has a Ph.d.
I took a summer class with him and made an A.
I'm taking another class with him this semester.
I didn't talk much in my summer class, but plan to be an active participant this semester.
The class I'm taking this semester is cross listed as a graduate level class.
I had to request to be in the class this semester and he said he would love to have me in the class.
I feel that getting a recommendation from this professor would be wonderful because he would be able to describe how well I handle classes with grad students.

Faculty #3
She has her M.A.
I took an online class with her last summer.
I made an A in her class.
The class was specified to my interests in feminist literature.
She is the academic advisor for the honor society that I am treasurer of.
I know she would give me a great recommendation.

Faculty #4
He has a Ph.D.
He is also widely known in his field of study.
I took a class with him a year ago, made an A-, but I didn't talk.
I'm taking a class with him this year and plan on participating in the discussion more than ever before. Not only with a lot of comments, but with thoughtful ones.
Getting a recommendation from him would be great, but may be generic since I know him least of all of my professors.

A Question for my Readers

Which faculty member do you think I should ask for a recommendation?