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How bad does lacking a RA letter hurt for PhD application and


soundchaser

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I'm a rising senior student from a top Canadian department. I worked with a prof for 8 months but the works were super simple and we had almost no personal interaction. I think it won't result in a letter. Now it's probably too late for me to do another RA as I'm applying for Fall 2016. How much will this hurt? Should I even put it in my SOP?

 

I have very good grade (likely top grade in my class) and probably 3 good letters from well-publish profs who have taught me. I will write a senior thesis this winter, supervised by a faculty. But we won't be working with a supervisor before January, as in the Fall student will be trained to do research in a small class. Do I have any shot at top 10? Will it compensates my lack of research experience if I wait another year and apply with my thesis experience and supervisor letter? If not, is there anything else I could do?

 

Thanks!

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I'm a rising senior student from a top Canadian department. I worked with a prof for 8 months but the works were super simple and we had almost no personal interaction. I think it won't result in a letter. Now it's probably too late for me to do another RA as I'm applying for Fall 2016. How much will this hurt? Should I even put it in my SOP?

 

I have very good grade (likely top grade in my class) and probably 3 good letters from well-publish profs who have taught me. I will write a senior thesis this winter, supervised by a faculty. But we won't be working with a supervisor before January, as in the Fall student will be trained to do research in a small class. Do I have any shot at top 10? Will it compensates my lack of research experience if I wait another year and apply with my thesis experience and supervisor letter? If not, is there anything else I could do?

 

Thanks!

 

Whether or not you have a shot at Top-10 or any other range depends on a lot more than what you've said here. Post a full profile (you can look around to see the format used here) and you will get a full appraisal.

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Thank you for replying. My main concern is the partial effect of not having a standard RA experience. I think I can infer the impact of other factors from my knowledge of the past placement of my department. But for the impact of not having a standard RA experience I have too little variations from the past observations to make any inference, as most people have that.

But you are right, it's time to post a full profile evaluation here. Thanks for reminding me. But I still want to hear

something about the impact of not having a standard RA experience.

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