So I don't think it would hurt to ask your profs for a new letter. If nothing new needs to be said, they could just change the date and re-upload. Although maybe you want to consider why you did not get into the schools you applied to -- sometimes, especially now that the admission decision rush is over, you might be able to ask the schools for feedback.
Maybe it would be in your best interests to change some of your LOR writers if you think the LORs were part of the problem. Remember that reference letters in academia are very different from reference letters in "real world" jobs. In the latter, the letter is mostly a formality, stating that yes you are a good person and a good worker and maybe highlighting some of your strengths. An academic LOR should not only boast your strengths in coursework and research or research potential , but be able to compare you favourably.
It might also be useful to let your LOR writers know of the results and thank them for their time last year. Maybe they might have some helpful advice for the second time around as well! Good luck! Yes, the service allows for the professor to upload a letter once and then you can reuse it for as many schools as you want. I would assume all my recommendation were strong. When I let one of my professors know I didn't get into any schools, she was really surprised because she had also recommended me personally to a possible advisor--but her suggestion was..
I just don't know if the letters were dated other than mentioning the dates I attended my undergraduate school. If they were then I would ask them to upload the new letter, but the whole point of using the dossier service, as a professor recommended it to me, was so that I could hang on to old letters. I lost my best recommendation that I received when the professor left the school after I graduated, started becoming a visiting professor at different schools every quarter, and then going abroad.
Could never track her down. Guess I will just have to ask. You need to be a member in order to leave a comment. Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy! Already have an account? Sign in here. By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Can I reuse LORs next year? Academia Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for academics and those enrolled in higher education. It only takes a minute to sign up. Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search.
Prompted by this question about "exporting" a reference letter, I am now thinking about the question if it is okay or even common to re-use already used reference letters. For a little context: I am in the process of applying for postdoc positions.
I have requested and gotten very nice letters for one position and - as they were similarly relevant - have used those letters once more for another application, after asking the people who wrote them if they are fine with that. I have, similar to the OP of the previously mentioned question considered what I should do when I get deeper into the process of applications and will write more and more of them.
Would it be okay to just use the letters I already have over and over? In general, I think in my case those people would have nothing against that, but I still feel oblidged to at least let them know who they are "refering" me to, before they might get any requests for further information out of the blue. Repeatedly pestering them every time I want to submit another application might get old fairly soon, though. I honestly have no idea if there is any common practice about this. As we all know, the academic job market is not that I can't imagine that every new PhD keeps repeatedly asking the same people for letters until they find their position asking different people once in a while would be an option, but then I would kind of "loose out" on the best letters by the people who know me best at least for some applications.
In the US, this practice essentially can't happen, because letters of reference are almost never given directly to the student—instead, the referee submits the letter directly to the requester. So you would have to ask your referees to submit the letter again on your behalf. I got rejected from a school last year. I am going to reapply to the school in this admission cycle, but I just got a notice that one of my letter writers would not be able to write any letters this year.
In this case, can I use his letter? He allowed me to use his old letter. Should I ask the department to see if I can reuse his letter? Is this request usually accepted? It depends a lot on the field and the department. Usually schools do not want applicants to upload the letter on behalf of the letter writer since schools don't expect students to have access to their letters.
In my field, the best thing to do is for the letter writer to just change the date on the letter if there was one and re-upload it again like last year. Then it won't raise any questions about whether the letter is compromised by the fact that you've seen it.
Strangely, even though the culture of letters in my field is that they must always be positive, there is still weird expectations of secrecy that doesn't really serve a purpose. Oh I forgot saying that I do not have the letter. I should ask the department to resue the old letter which was uploaded last year. They may agree. But it'd still be better if the prof could upload the letter, even if it's exactly the same as last year.
If nothing did, the admissions decision likely won't either.
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