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I'm applying to Chemistry PhD programs with two strong letters from my previous PIs. However, I'm having trouble choosing a recommender for my third letter.

I'm thinking about asking a professor in a completely unrelated field, as the class was project based and we had a great relationship. The projects were pretty technical and required a lot of coding. Alternatively, I could ask a Chemistry professor whose class I did well in. This professor doesn't know me as well, and there were essentially no larger projects.

The way I see it is that the professor in an unrelated field could comment on my critical thinking, work ethic, and ability to follow though on larger projects. I'm a little worried about asking for a letter from someone in an unrelated field. Please let me know what you think!

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    How unrelated is that field? Sounds like CS or a science.
    – Buffy
    Commented Nov 7 at 18:57
  • It's complicated... the class is actually listed as a studio arts course, but the professor has a computer science degree. It's like a combination of art and code. The course itself didn't require that our projects were technical – it was up to the student.
    – alex
    Commented Nov 7 at 20:42
  • What do you plan on doing in chemistry? It sounds like this letter writer could speak to your creativity (always a plus) and coding ability, which could be very helpful if you're going in a computational/theoretical direction but perhaps less so if you want to focus on wet lab research. (Always useful for data analysis, of course.)
    – Anyon
    Commented Nov 8 at 1:42
  • Thanks for the advice. I'm strictly interested in labs that label themselves as multidisciplinary. This generally means a great deal of synthesis work, but could include DFT and other computational work. I guess I really just need to decide how much risk I'm willing to take.
    – alex
    Commented Nov 8 at 2:36
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    academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5492/… Its not finished yet, but have a look at the draft for a canonical answer here.
    – Sursula
    Commented Nov 8 at 11:35

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I have served on chemistry admissions committees for years. We are not as closeminded or subdiscipline focused as other areas. Students with backgrounds in materials science, chemical, mechanical, and environmental engineering, biology, and physics frequently apply and join our programs. So there would not be negative stigma for out-of-field LoRs.

What is important is what that LoR will tell me.

"alex has good work ethic and is a critical thinker" is kind of meaningless. Most letters are filled with this generic fluff. Every student is a great thinker, is able to work alone or with others, is both a leader and a great team mate, etc....

What has most value in a letter is if the faculty who wrote it holds a position that will allow them to make an appropriate assessment of your potential to be successful in graduate school. This is harder if your writers are at PUIs, but not impossible. As a rule of thumb I would look at faculty who are permanent (not lecturers or adjuncts) and have a research profile (a PhD in chemistry is a very intense research degree).

If you already have letters from people you have worked for, they can speak to your specific research skills with more insight based on prolonged interactions. If a third can offer a strong (and educated) opinion as to your potential success in graduate school, then that is who I would go with.

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