I am at the final semester of my Master's. I am trying to apply for a PhD in various universities. However mostly I fail to provide letters of recommendations. My academic history and experience are adequate for pursuing a PhD. I don't want to nudge professors for every application. It's kind of deciding my future single-handedly.
Why is it so necessary to provide a letter of recommendation? Is it possible to get accepted into a PhD program without letters of recommendation?
First, I'm answering the question you need answered: Nudge your professors. Writing letters of recommendation is part of your professors' jobs.
Don't misunderstand me: They're not obligated to write letters for any one particular student. But it is, in general, their job to write appropriate letters for students they think are deserving.
But they will not do this-- and will have no way of knowing you want them to do this-- until you ask. And I am sorry to say, it may take some effort on your part, because professors have a lot of other things to do, and can be easily distracted. You may need to do more than nudge them, you may need to herd them like cats.
Now, here's the answer to the question you did ask: Grades aren't everything. I knew a kid when I was getting my undergrad who came from a wealthy family and was systematically gaming the rules to get himself a perfect transcript. He found some loophole in the system whereby he would withdraw from a class if he thought he wasn't going to get an A, and his family was willing to eat the tuition, sometimes multiple times.
That is an extreme outlying example, but I strongly suspect he would not be able to get a good letter of recommendation, even thought he looked great on paper.
Letters of recommendation cover the intangibles of a student's profile-- work ethic, character, honesty, etc. Since you, as a prospective PhD student are applying for something like a job, and are going to be asking people to make large investments of time in training you, they are interested in those intangibles
That's the way it is. Same for industry jobs and government jobs.
"I don't want to nudge professors for every application"
I would recommend you to reverse your attitude towards this. Please don't be shy to ask your professors for reference letters — because writing such letters is an important part of their work.
When I taught at a university, it was a normal routine for me to compose, every year, reference letters for a bunch of students, and send these letters to wherever they say. Now a research scientist, I write reference letters for young colleagues. This is a part of our life in science. This is normal. I assure you that your professors take it the same way.
I kindly advise you to have 3 -4 professors from your department whom you've interacted with in regular classes or lab projects. Explain yourself to them and let them know that you'll be trying out different universities. Ask for their commitment to see you through the admission process by sending letters on time at all times. When you get such a commitment, then you'll be free to try as many university admissions as you can afford.
I clearly understand your side of the story, the reason being; that I applied in as many universities as I could and I sent as many cold emails as I could to different professors. Sometimes our department professors were so engaged with different works, conferences, paper publications, and their Lab students. Getting him/her to write a recommendation letter for you and send it in time, is hard. If you're not from his/her lab, this is even harder. You find yourself in a position to constantly remind and keep asking whether they sent the letter or not yet. This is nudging, given the fact that we always accord Maximum respect to our professors. We can't frequent their offices for such reasons (it sounds ok to frequent but he/she will be fed up with these frequent visits and at the end he/she might throw in some attitudes). Now, extend this situation to a student who has applied to various universities and the same 'HARD Professor' has to send in a letter to each of the universities where you applied. If it was hard for him/her to send to One, what about these many universities to which you're applying? In most cases, most PhD students are not admitted in their first admission attempt, which means that we are likely to submit more than one admission, which means more letters from these "Hard Professors". In my case, I had easier Professors that I could approach but they declined to help me out, saying that they did not have a closer working relationship with me so their letters could not be a good reflection of me. This is frustrating that's why I can fully understand your situation. Therefore, getting your 3-4 professors by your side seems a better solution. It helped me out, it has helped some of my friends in a similar situation, this is why I hope that it will help you too.
