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Hello guys, Just a question out of the blue. Does anyone not waive the right to see the recommendation letters? meaning they check that they wish to see the letters after the admission cycle? Can the letter writers see that you have not waived it? and what do they think about it?

For how much I've heard that admissions can be affected by letter writers leveraging connections with colleagues on adcoms, I have no idea how this works in practice, or if there is a role in all this for the applicant. I suspect other applicants find the process similarly opaque. An example on context, in this wonderful thread I lurked ( http://www.www.urch.com/forums/phd-economics/157874-admissions-process.html ), @startz and @Kaysa offer some very useful, candid opinions on the admissions process, and cite the importance of adcom members knowing an applicant's reference. I have two questions on this process, hoping to get some first- or second-hand accounts: (1) Where in the process does the whole personal connection thing tend to factor in? @Kaysa suggests profs on adcoms may call letter writers they know. Is it common for writers to directly ring up a friend on an adcom? (2) Does the applicant need to play a role in any of this? For example, if writers do tend to ring up their colleagues, is it the applicant's job to nudge the writer in that direction and/or signal clearly which program(s) the applicant really would love the help with? What time in the application/admissions process makes most sense to do this? Thanks!

Hi, I would like to seek advice on managing a fourth letter writer for econ PhD applications. I think I'm in a situation where three of my letter writers dominate the fourth letter writer. The profile of my letter writers (profs who have agreed to write me an LOR) are roughly: A: My thesis supervisor. Relatively younger, but has a pretty good publication record. B: A pretty senior prof. I did well on his/her field course. He/She was also one of my thesis graders. C: Moderately senior prof. I took his/her real analysis class. But it is not evident at all from my transcript that the class resembled anything close to a real analysis class. Aside from this, the only other math module on my transcript is a "math for economists" type of module. D: Fairly junior prof. I did well on his/her field course. He/She was also one of my thesis graders. Slightly below the other 3 in terms of tier of school attended. My impression is that if all four letters are roughly equal, then the conventional approach is to mix the letters up. But in my situation, I think that A B and C form a dominant set of letter writers. If so, how should I manage D, and what should I tell D? e.g. do I tell D that A B and C have already agreed to write me letters? - but if so, is that not essentially conveying that his/her letter is subpar or unnecessary, which is just not very nice overall? Additionally, I think one other relevant consideration is that the two more senior profs B and C aren't the most responsive to emails, and D could still serve as a backup writer if necessary. So I'm hesitant to convey that I don't need his/her letter. Appreciate any advice on this, thanks!