Schools How do I handle letters of recommendation for grad school?

[semidevil]

so I have 3 choices in my area for graduate school(mathematics). Currently, my gpa is not the higest, so the letters of reccommendations are very important to me. I want to apply to all 3, and and depending on which one I get accepted into, I can choose.

How do I handle my letters of reccomendations from proffessors? I'm not close to my profs at all, but I do have 2 or 3 that I think will be able to help me out a bit. Do I ask them each to write 3 letters, one for each school?

how do people usually handle this type of situation?

 

[bfd]

so I have 3 choices in my area for graduate school(mathematics). Currently, my gpa is not the higest, so the letters of reccommendations are very important to me. I want to apply to all 3, and and depending on which one I get accepted into, I can choose.

How do I handle my letters of reccomendations from proffessors? I'm not close to my profs at all, but I do have 2 or 3 that I think will be able to help me out a bit. Do I ask them each to write 3 letters, one for each school?

how do people usually handle this type of situation?

I'm kind of in the same position. My Math gpa sucks (about a 2.5). The only option I can think of to combat the gpa problem is to maybe take more math courses outside school after you graduate. That way you could get a better math background and boost the gpa.

 

[matt grime]

you ask them to write one letter and send a copy of it to each school. (unless they happen to feel like writing 3 different ones which is very unlikely).

i don't know enough about GPAs to have an opinion on that.

 

[Maxos]

What's a "gpa"??

 

[bfd]

Grade point average

 

[Brad Barker]

Grade point average

yeah, it's an indication of how high your grades have been.

an A (highest mark) is given a 4
a B, 3
C, 2
D, 1
and E (in some colleges) or F, 0.

your grade point average is the arithmetic average of these numerical marks.

so let's suppose that you took five courses so far in college with the following grades:

A, B, A, C, C

gpa: 1/5 * (4 + 3 + 4 + 2 + 2) = 15/5 = 3.0

a 2.5 gpa is a little on the low side...



and, yeah, you ask your professors to write a letter of rec. tell them how many copies, give'em the addresses. unless, of course, one of those schools requires some special format, in which case the professor would need to do that in addition.

 

[Maxos]

In Italy, marks at University are expressed in 30ths, the max is 30 with "lode" (= praise), but, from a physical point of view, our system is too sensitive, yours makes more sense, how can you distinguish a 27 from a 28??

 

[Brad Barker]

In Italy, marks at University are expressed in 30ths, the max is 30 with "lode" (= praise), but, from a physical point of view, our system is too sensitive, yours makes more sense, how can you distinguish a 27 from a 28??

lol, wow. that's pretty nuanced.

 

[so-crates]

Bad GPA can really kill your applicaiton. You generally have to have a really good excuse. The only ways to overcome it are to have glowing recommendations, really original research ideas, or in the case of math, a high score in the Putnam. A good score in the Math GRE might help a little bit.

 

[bfd]

Bad GPA can really kill your applicaiton. You generally have to have a really good excuse. The only ways to overcome it are to have glowing recommendations, really original research ideas, or in the case of math, a high score in the Putnam. A good score in the Math GRE might help a little bit.

But couldn't it help if you take extra math classes to boost your gpa?

 

[neurocomp2003]

how do you plead to a professor on writing you a reference, when they were going to write you a good one but you screwed up along the way(ie quit).

 

[Maxos]

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