Recommendation Letter
Your recommendations are important because they verify your claims and provide the admissions committee an opportunity to learn more about you from people you have worked closely with. Hence, good recommendations can serve as a powerful tool to 'sell' yourself to the committee. We list here the common issues:

Why are Recommendation Letters important?
Every part of your application, builds an image of your personality in the minds of the admissions committee. The recommendation letters provide a third person's perspective on the kind of person
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Model Letter
Strategies for obtaining Letter of Recommendation
What if you don't have a Recommender.

you are. What a recommendation letter writes about you should add or supplement what you claim to be through your essays/SOP and work experience details. It certainly would create doubts about you as a person if the image that your recommendation letter creates completely inverts the image that you've been trying to create through your essays/SOPs and work experience details.

The one simple way to make recommendation letters contribute to your admission process is to keep your application straight and honest. Present the facts as they actually are - be truthful about every claim you make in every aspect of your application.
There is one thing that you certainly can do and that is to choose the people who can recommend you judiciously. Choose a person who knows you well and likes you as a person and then ask him/her to give a fair assessment of you as a person in the recommendation letter.

Your application form will give you details about the recommendation letters you are required to submit. The number of recommendations and from whom - whether from your work or from your school or both.