Does One Neutral/Generic Letter of Recommendation Ruin an Application?
I might just be worrying about the wrong stuff right now, but I am hoping to apply for a PhD in two years (entering junior this fall) and I'm concerned about letters of recommendation. I got into biomed research in my second semester, freshman year, because a friend was in the lab and told me to join, and it was a great experience for me (I learned I really liked research and also that I was more interested in protein/cell stuff than what we were doing), but to be honest, I feel I didn't take enough initiative and didn't interact with my PI enough since a grad student managed us most of the time. I'm transferring now to a different institution, where I'm joining a lab that I'm more interested in and am going to be more active. I am concerned that when I apply for PhD's a letter of rec from my first lab will be pretty generic/not very strong because of what I said previously. Will this really hurt an application, and if so is it just going to mean I'm screwed for like T20 schools or most programs?