To reco or not to reco

So, you're studying for the GMAT, got plenty of good ideas for the essays and have figured out all the practical stuff, now it's time to think about the recommendations. Here's a few tips from my experience:

* Start early. Chances are your recommenders are very busy people. So whatever you do, think about it ahead of time. Also consider how many recommendations you might need, from whom (Stanford for instance also requires a peer recommendation). If you're applying to a shedload of schools, it might be a good idea to spread the load over more than two recommenders.

* Choose carefully. Nothing worse in the recommender-area than choosing the wrong recommenders. Choose people that know you well as a person and that you suspect will have something positive to say. DO NOT choose the CEO of your company just because of his title (but by all means choose him/her if he/she knows you well and has good things to say).

* If you, like me, are not surrounded by MBA's and your recommenders are thus a bit unsure of what writing an MBA recommendation entails, prepare an information packet. I recommend filling it with: recent CV, short summary of what you want and when you want it, short summaries of each school you want them to write a recommendation for, what your post-MBA goals are (tie these in with your essays so the recommendations support the essays), and a few sample recommendations (Montauk's book is very good for this, but there are probably some examples on the internet as well).

* If your recommender's native language is not English, try and get someone with good English skills to proofread the recommendations (same goes for your essays).

* DO NOT be tempted to write your own recommendations. Reason one: it's just not good karma, you are not meant to write them, that's what the essays are for. Reason two: this could be a really good opportunity to cultivate your relationship with your recommenders (hey, this is b-school: you never know when you might need your network ;-). Reason three: just don't. Make it easy for them to write the recommendation by allowing them enough time and handing them all the information they need and if you've chosen wisely, they'll happy to help you.

[edit 1: almost forgot: good luck to all the LBS R4's who are waiting for their results tomorrow!]
[edit 2: there's another LBS2007 blog (yeah, we're becoming a real community here!), see USA to LBS]