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Gradschool applicants from India: I know a large fraction of profs at Indian universities ask you to draft your own letters of recommendation. This is quite unfortunate! (1/6)
Drafting an informative letter takes plenty of time, and experience. It's hard to expect a student (usually undergrad) to draft one! (2/6)
From an admisisons committee perspective, the letters end up being not helpful. It's hard to compare two applicants *who've drafted their own letters*. (3/6)
You might not realize, but dmissions committees know this and typically discount letters they suspect to be student-drafted (often they send follow-up requests to your referees). (4/6)
If you're a prof that requests students write their own letters - please reconsider. You'll do a great deal of good spending an hour or so drafting an informative letter. (5/6).
Lastly, to all referees that write their own letters - THANK YOU! Writing reference letters is a thankless job; and occupies a huge chunk of time (not to mention all the questionnaires to be filled out for each school-student pair). (6/6)
Addendum: If you're a gradschool applicant and have been asked to "write a draft letter for yourself", here's my short summary on what makes a letter more informative
(Caveat: Assumes access to a lot of information only your referee might have) http://krrish94.github.io/blog/gradschool-letters/
(Caveat: Assumes access to a lot of information only your referee might have) http://krrish94.github.io/blog/gradschool-letters/
