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LORs from non-U.S. born


PinkEcon

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How does everyone feel about getting LORs from non-U.S. born profs? Non-U.S. born professors are in the majority in our mathematics/statistics departments, many of whom are simply excellent professors. However, since they mostly come from East Asia/Former Soviet Union (where the syntax, cultural coding, etc. is completely different) I know that their written expressions would probably mean less to nothing next to what they could express verbally. I stress that this is not meant to be brought up as an issue of racism; I myself am a 2nd generation American of one of the above descents and have intensively studied one of those languages abroad for a year, so I know what the difficulties are like.

 

I know that I have been doing really well in my proof-based stats course and would like to potentially ask my prof for a LOR in the Fall, but I am worried about how the adcoms might receive a somewhat non-perfect English letter.

 

Any thoughts?:hmm:

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I don't think it would be a problem, these people have experience writing scholarly articles in English and even if there were some slipups I think adcoms would be sympathetic (as some of the people reading the recs are probably non-native speakers themselves).

 

Oh and btw, there are native English speakers who are not "U.S.-born" (England for example ;)).

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PinkEcon,

 

they probably just ask colleagues for standard form letters anyway and then tweak them.....

 

besides at many programs the number of students from foreign universities is high, and probably all of them had Rec's from people who don't even work in English that much....

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All my recommendation writers were non-US born and I myself am not from the US. But I don't think my professors' English has any problems..so I wasn't bothered about the grammatical accuracy of the letters. But to answer your question PinkEcon, there are plenty of students who are selected from countries where English is not a commonly used language. As long as you have solid academic credentials to support your application, a decent TOEFL score and a strong LOR, the grammar of the letter shouldn't create any big problem.
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Good to know others have also had non-US born recommenders! Everyone on this forum seems to be putting a lot of high stress on the LORs so I had been a bit worried that EVERY aspect of the LOR had to be perfect! :)

 

A comment on foreign students; I heard from a professor that 40% of their 1st year econ dropouts are US citizens...basically, many of the US students are unable to handle the rigorous math. If I were an adcom I would probably put higher weight on the math courses of international students since their courses are probably much more rigorous than their US counterparts and less emphasis on the LORs. As many of you know, there is a lot of "curving" going on in US courses so just because someone got an A in linear algebra or analysis does not always correspond to an "A" proficiency in the topic...which is probably why for U.S. applicants like me, letter of recs from math professors is a good idea :)

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