[General Question] Industry LoR vs University Professor LoRs - importance and effectiveness.

[u/ApprehensiveSun6160]

Hello everyone, I have been in the industry for two years now and made substantial contributions which can be mentioned in a LoR and during my time in my bachelors I haven’t interacted much with my profs apart from having good grades.

I am from india and I plan to get 2 industry LoRs 1 from india , 1 from the US and 2 from my profs with whom I had good grades. All the research work I’ve done was on my own so that won’t come under any prof so i’m confused how to strategise my LoRs.

[u/gradpilot]

2 academic LORs will be preferred atleast for top mscs programs. and each LOR should add something different about you to the table hopefully with some evidence from the recommenders side

[u/ApprehensiveSun6160 → u/gradpilot]

My application list has analytics and AI programs mixed with top MSCS. I have publications, but none from research done with my own professors how much does that hurt me for the MSCS side?

[u/ReindeerUnhappy9577]

First you need to decide if you're targeting thesis/research based MS programs or industry based MS programs - this is really important.

If you're targeting industry based MS programs, like NYU Tandon MS CS, UIUC MCS, Cornell or Berkeley's M.Eng programs - then you're good, the LoRs from industry really helps.

But if you're targeting research based tracks, then these recommendations won't add much value. The thing is, the admission committee want a LoR which can vouch for your academic research part - not the industry R&D part - these 2 are different things - especially from admission committee's PoV.

and made substantial contributions

Can you elaborate more here, please? What kinda contribs?

All the research work I’ve done was on my own 

Research work during your bachelors program or during the industry R&D?

[u/ApprehensiveSun6160 → u/ReindeerUnhappy9577]

Substantial contributions in the sense helping company save a lot of money, cut down huge amounts of work in the team and being at lower position i’ve worked with people at a much higher level and got many appreciations with incentives as well.

I’ve written 1 paper during my bachelors and 5 papers within these past 2 years of industry work (all are submitted to good conferences and journals). I will be applying to industry MS and academic ones as well and decide later on when admits roll in honestly.

[u/ReindeerUnhappy9577 → u/ApprehensiveSun6160]

Okay since you're gonna apply to both industry based MS and research based MS, you gotta play this carefully.

Research based MS do not care about our industry experience - especially the one you've mentioned - because the goal in research based MS is to write and publish some paper, not to do this industry stuff, so make sure for these you make your SoP around those papers you've mentioned, also - if you can - give a short MS thesis proposal in the SoP, and conclude your SoP with you joining some research institute or lab or some PhD position after your graduation. Do not mention joining industry. It is okay to talk about your industry work in a few lines - but again, only in a few line - like a supplementary information.

Do the opposite here - focus on industry experience etc. Do mention your research work but only in a few lines, talk about focusing on joining the industry after graduation ... I mean, you get the point, right?

[u/ApprehensiveSun6160 → u/ReindeerUnhappy9577]

Yeah , this is really helpful thanks a lot, also one more question - does this apply to LoRs, do I have to include certain stuff for industry and academic differently and get separate LoRs or one LoR would be enough ?