11/6  Suppose a grad school requires 3 letters of rec. Would it help or
       hurt if I send in 4 [good] letters?
       \_if applying to Yale, call them to make sure they have all your
          letters.  their internal mail system looses stuff like this.
          i had to get my letters sent twice. -yale phd student
       \_ choose your 3 best letters
         \_ choose the three that you think readers will know, have
            read papers by, will think positively of, are in the general
            area of what you would like to study, and that you might
            imagine might be your role models
         \_ You probably don't know what your best 3 letters are, because
            you didn't get to read them. If you really think all 4 of yours
            are equivalent, send in all 4. It won't hurt and may well help -
            that's more chance that an admissions person will know who your
            recommender is. I sent 4 to all my grad schools.
                                                    - Stanford PhD student
           \_ laugh - he sent all 4 and $80,000. they tossed his letters
                \_ note to dumbass: if you're a PhD student at a top-20
                   school, the odds of you paying your own tuition are
                   practically nil.
                   \_ why is it nil? I've worked for 5 yrs and have
                      considerable savings (enough to pay 40K+ per
                      yr for 5-7 yrs if my money doesn't earn any
                      interest at all). I'm guessing that there are
                      plenty of grad students in my position.
                      \_ Most engr grad students get assistantships if they
                         are doing PhD work, thus they don't have to pay.
                         Masters students often have to pay, but not PhD
                         who are doing research.
                 \_ Good job.  You need to remind these Cal hippies
                    what their place is every once in a while.
                    \_ Cal is not a top 20 school?
                       \_ cal undergrad is not a top 20 grad school because
                          cal undergrad is not a grad school.