Letters of Recommendation

Class Location: The Internet.

Description: Many of the top business schools require at least a couple letters of recommendation.  This is a fairly important part of the application process.

Objective: Learn who to ask, how many people to ask, and more.

Part of the application process for an MBA program is having people submit letters of recommendation on your behalf. Most top business schools require 2 to 3 letters of recommendations from people qualified to support your candidacy for admission.

The purpose of these letters is to support everything you have said in your application, so you need people who really know you well to write the letters and you need to represent yourself honestly throughout your application.

Find people who can attest to your skills, abilities, desires and goals that relate to earning your MBA at this particular institution. Great recommendation letters provide the details and the credibility to show that you have the potential to do well in the MBA program and to be successful afterwards. They will help persuade the committee that you will excel in their program and represent their institution well after you have graduated.

You want the recommendations to come from people who you know and trust. Their job title is not as important as what they can honestly reveal about your professional skills, abilities and experiences.

Since you will need multiple letters of recommendation, choose people who will recommend you to the committee in different ways. Three letters that paint a picture of you from the same angle, no matter how much they praise you will not be as effective as three separate but persuasive pictures of you. So choose colleagues, employers, associates and peers who know you well and can provide an excellent recommendation, but each with their own unique glimpse of who you are. Such letters will help round out your application and personal statement much more effectively.

But be sure to follow directions. The school probably specifies the number of letters they want to receive. Unless you have good reasons, don't exceed that limit as it will not help you because you are not following the directions. It is better to just make the ones you can send count.