Dear Millerm27,
Thanks for your post! There are a number of resources available when it comes to recommendations, and I've tried to provide you with a few from our site below. Beyond that, I'll echo Jen's sentiment that the key is for your recommender to
show and not
tell the adcom how great you are.
In the meantime, here are a few links of interest that relate to the recommendations process:
Common Recommender Dilemmas
https://blog.clearadmit.com/2008/10/admi ... ilemmas-2/
Managing Your Recommenders
https://blog.clearadmit.com/2005/07/admi ... endations/
Harvard Business School's POV on Recommendations
https://blog.clearadmit.com/2008/06/harv ... mendation/
Beyond these links, you may want to investigate the
Clear Admit Recommendation Guide (a downloadable publication). The Guide focuses on strategically selecting the best possible recommenders, helping them understand the characteristics of a strong recommendation, and exerting some influence over the content of their comments to arrive at complementary documents that reinforces the strengths of your candidacy and alleviate its weaknesses. Most importantly in your case, the guide includes a set of guidelines you can print and share with your recommenders, a list of frequently asked questions and two full sample recommendations.
Details can be found here:
https://www.clearadmit.com/ss_reco.html
Best of luck,
Graham