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Recommendation letters

Posted: Fri Mar 01, 2019 3:40 am
by jababa123
Hi,

I am wondering how many letters I can submit to grad schools, without pissing them off?

I know that 3 is the standard, but because of the situation I am in, it might be best for me to send 4. If I do send 3, I may not be able to send one from a very famous mathematician who taught me in two recent grad classes that I did well in. So that would be the cost of not sending a 4th letter.

Would that be accepted by programs, or would it be viewed negatively?

Thanks!

Re: Recommendation letters

Posted: Fri Mar 01, 2019 3:53 am
by young556646
jababa123 wrote:Hi,

I am wondering how many letters I can submit to grad schools, without pissing them off?

I know that 3 is the standard, but because of the situation I am in, it might be best for me to send 4. If I do send 3, I may not be able to send one from a very famous mathematician who taught me in two recent grad classes that I did well in. So that would be the cost of not sending a 4th letter.

Would that be accepted by programs, or would it be viewed negatively?

Thanks!
If you cannot send a letter from a very famous mathematician, your other three letters must be even better than that, then why do you even worry about that?

Re: Recommendation letters

Posted: Fri Mar 01, 2019 5:26 am
by jababa123
young556646 wrote:
jababa123 wrote:Hi,

I am wondering how many letters I can submit to grad schools, without pissing them off?

I know that 3 is the standard, but because of the situation I am in, it might be best for me to send 4. If I do send 3, I may not be able to send one from a very famous mathematician who taught me in two recent grad classes that I did well in. So that would be the cost of not sending a 4th letter.

Would that be accepted by programs, or would it be viewed negatively?

Thanks!
If you cannot send a letter from a very famous mathematician, your other three letters must be even better than that, then why do you even worry about that?
The other three letter writers know me better, and I was in some degree involved in doing research with them.

Re: Recommendation letters

Posted: Fri Mar 01, 2019 7:32 am
by optimisticnihilist
I think you can send 4 or even 5 in most cases, unless the department explicitly mentions that they want 3 and only 3 letters.

Re: Recommendation letters

Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2019 7:54 am
by fmcgla
jababa123 wrote:Hi,

I am wondering how many letters I can submit to grad schools, without pissing them off?

I know that 3 is the standard, but because of the situation I am in, it might be best for me to send 4. If I do send 3, I may not be able to send one from a very famous mathematician who taught me in two recent grad classes that I did well in. So that would be the cost of not sending a 4th letter.

Would that be accepted by programs, or would it be viewed negatively?

Thanks!
Unless this famous professor has worked with you personally then I would go with three tbh. If you have good research experience which the other three letters can talk about, then I think an extra letter could distract from this. I submitted 5 letters with one of my application and I think in hind sight it was a bad idea. You can always mention your time in this professors class in your sop, plus your transcript will speak for itself.