The latest wrinkle to the GRE is the Personal Potential Index (PPI), which requires up to five recommenders to evaluate students on a scale of 1 to 5 in six areas: knowledge and creativity, communication skills, teamwork, planning and organization, ethics and integrity, and resilience.
The mean scores are then reported to schools along with the evaluators’ comments in a simple, but slick-looking five page report.  For more info, go to:  http://www.usnews.com/blogs/on-education/2008/05/27/more-changes-ahead-for-the-gre-test.html

In assessing the PPI, I find myself a bit torn.  On the one hand, it’s  from ETS, so I’m apt to be suspicious.  I’m wondering what useful information admissions committees expect to glean from the PPI that they don’t already get from recommendations.  But on the other hand, the notion of standardizing and quantifying input from evaluators does have a sound logic to it (speaking of “quantifying,” if you’ve never read the book “Freakonomics,” you should).

I think that admissions officers are going to like the report because it provides evaluator feedback in a simple, easy to digest format.  In fact, over time I can easily see the PPI replacing traditional recommendations altogether.  As I see it, though, there is a danger that some admissions folks will assign too much credence to a numerical score that is derived from five or fewer evaluators.  In that case, a strong candidate might get penalized for having evaluators who choose not to “inflate” their grades.  If ETS claims that the PPI can’t be coached, well that’s what they said about the SAT, and that didn’t turn out to be true either.

For now though, I’ll remain cautiously optimistic that the PPI will become a valuable tool for making more informed admissions decisions, and I’ll instead reserve a spot on the soapbox  to speak out on what I consider to be the most significant shortcoming of the GRE, which is the whole notion of giving the same exam to 600,000 grad school aspirants, regardless of the academic nature of the sought after program.  Should artisits, writers,  and engineers really be taking the same test?  I doubt it.

For many applicants, nothing causes more stress during the admissions process than  recommendations.  So let’s discuss:  Schools will typically ask recommenders to provide objective feedback about a candidate to help the admissions committee make a more informed decision, but is the recommendation letter really supposed to be objective?  Of course not.  Your recommendations should be emphatic letters of support from appropriate individuals who know you well and are able to write compellingly on your behalf.

Which brings me to common mistake #1: choosing a recommender based on the seniority of their position or stature in the community.  The thinking goes like this “hey, my boss loves me, but she’s just a manager.  Instead, I’ll get a senior director, who by the way doesn’t really know me, to write my rec, and this will make me look more substantive.”  Unless Barack Obama is writing the letter, admissions committees will not be impressed by this approach.  Rather they want evidence that the recommender knows you well and can provide specific examples demonstrating your talent and skills.

Which brings me to common mistake #2:  you go to your boss, and ask: “would you please write my recommendation? And your boss says, “I’d love to…in fact how about this: write what you want, and I’ll sign it.”  So, you think to yourself, “Nice! Now I”ll have a great recommendation.”

It’s unlikely you’ll get caught  because it’s not an admissions committee’s job to catch you, but I can’t tell you how many times I read recommendations that had the same misspelled words as the essays did.  I’d think to myself “wow, this guy works so closely with his boss that they misspell the same words! Who’d have thought?”  But seriously, the biggest problem with writing your own recommendation, aside from the ethical lapse, is that you’d basically be writing another essay for yourself.  A major benefit of a good recommendation is that it provides support for you in someone else’s voice.

If you’ve got specific questions about recommendations, post them here, and I’ll cover them in an upcoming post, as well as other strategies for procuring great recs.