I was wondering if Georgetown allows additional letters of recommendation, and if so, would they help at all? My family is friendly with two trustees of Georgetown who know me personally quite well, and they’ve seen me through multiple stages of my life, so would letters of rec from them be a beneficial addition to my application?
bumppppp
if the two trustees make some phone calls and send letters, it can only help. It can’t hurt…
^^^ spot on.
A letter of rec is not as ideal as some discrete phone calls from the Trustees to ‘check in’ with admissions about a certain applicant. It could go either way. Feels terribly underhanded to me but it’s a battle against other applicants pulling the same strings with their connections and legacy etc. so go for it.
@Senior2016M I’m wondering why you think it’s underhanded? People who have a legacy at a certain school certainly don’t shy away from using that connection, so why should someone who is family friends with a trustee of a university (whose family was friends with the individual long before they became a trustee) feel guilty for using a similar connection?
If you read my post more carefully, yonce, you’ll see that I likened the two courses of action, and said that BOTH are underhanded, but that BOTH occur, and that you should therefore go ahead and get whatever advantage you can.
For an intercultural perspective that you might find valuable, people from outside the US find the system of legacy and connection within the university context egregiously unfair. University admissions are based purely on the standardized merits of applicants - performance in national exams and grades. If you don’t have the high marks, you can’t get into Oxford. But, if you are smart and work hard, you can get admitted.
I think you should use your connections, as this IS in the context of the US, so you’ll need all the help you can get. All is fair in love and war, as they say. I think both actions have a degree of underhandedness as I believe in a meritocracy, not a battle of who can throw their weight about and flash around their connections the best - that’s all I meant.