Hey guys, I have a pretty straight forward question. When asked to submit recommendations to schools, does it give you a slight (even “microscopic”) boost when the writer is a graduate of the school your applying to?
Say I’m applying to Columbia, and my english teacher is a Columbia graduate. So I ask him to write a recommendation for me that turns out to be awesome.
Will the fact that a graduate of a certain school is writing the recommendation, give a slight edge to the recommendation itself?
<p>I'm gonna bump this, I'm very interested on the answer. I was just about to post the same question.</p>
<p>Not sure how this applies to all schools. Some anecdotal evidence that it does count: From my high school year, five people from my school applied to Duke (three early, two regular) and each had a recommendation from the same English teacher who graduated from there. All five were accepted.</p>
<p>Of course all five had stellar GPAs, SAT scores, and ECs to begin with. After working in an admission office, I find that the recommendation plays a very minimal role in whether or not you are accepted to a school.</p>
<p>far more important than if the teacher graduated from the school is if they can give an enthusiastic recommendation.</p>
<p>jonw222-really? I thought recs played a major role. What plays teh largest role then?</p>
<p>Oh it definently counts. Several admissions officers are in fact graduates from that same school. Read The Gatekeepers and you'll see what I mean. Some tend to empathize with an applicant if s/he went through the same thing the admission's officer did. Probably most do that actually.</p>
<p>i might apply to USC film school in a few years. im going to get a recc from a professor there. id think itd give me an edge...</p>
<p>Recs, essays, and interviews only play a major role at a school that receives a ton of applications (over 20,000) if they show extenuating circumstances to SAT scores, GPA, or even extracurricular. For instance, if you had to help your disabled parents throughout your life, it would be shown as perhaps a reason you had a B instead of an A in Chemistry Freshman year. If you had to hold a job throughout your college life, it might show why you didn't do as many extracurriculars as your peers. These kinds of situations should definitely be brought up at interviews and in essays.</p>
<p>Let's be perfectly honest though. If a college has 20,000-40,000 applications to look through, how closely can they possibly look at everyone's essays and recs.</p>
<p>The selective colleges first group people by informal categories such as URM's, legacies, athletes, international students, development cases, VIPS, geographic areas, and applicants with unusual majors (that the college offers). (In addition, it is easier to get in during ED.) They first look at difficulty of curriculum, then gpa/rank, and then standardized test scores. After you get past that, they look at EC's, essays, and recommendations. In the EC's and essays, they are looking for "passion" and long-term commitment to one or two interests. Recommendations are handled differently at different schools. (Large schools are more numbers driven and concentrate on the gpa/rank and standardized test scores.) Two people probably read the recommendation. Each person would rank them on a scale of 1-5 or 1-9 or however they do it at the college. In order to get a 5 (or 9), they are looking for phrases such as "this student is the best student I have ever encountered in my twenty years of teaching" or "it is amazing how Ted's fellow students look up to him in almost awe as if he is going to be president of the United States someday". From that point on, they have too many qualified applicants for the available slots, and its basically a lottery. They don't actually roll dice, but they may as well. When you have to pick only 1 out of 5 qualified applicants, you find a reason but the reason is probably minor and meaningless. Being put on the waitlist is a nice way of saying that you're as good as anyone we accepted, but we don't have room. The waitlist can be longer than the list of accepted applicants.</p>
<p>I would go with the teacher who would write you the best recommendation. As an aside, do not accept offers from your parents friends to write to the college to help get you in.</p>
<p>thanks dufus! lol thats sounds wierd.... are you an adcom?</p>
<p>No, I'm a civilian. My son applied to college last year and I found that I have a real interest in college admissions. It will go away someday. I used to read a lot on the Amer Civil War, but I'm a little burned out on that now. What I said is what a lot of college admissions guides say. The insanity drops off sharply after you are out of the top 20-40 schools. Good luck.</p>
<p>not necessarily. my history teacher, who is an alum of upenn and also an alumni interviewer for upenn, wrote my letter of rec. he said it was the best letter of rec he ever wrote. i still got rejected from upenn. of course, there are too many other variables involved to determine if an alumni writing the letter of rec helps or not.</p>
<p>In my case, I think it added a slight boost that my english lit teacher had an undergrad degree from amherst when I applied. Then again, he was a relatively recent alum which might have helped. Good luck and in any case, it can't hurt!</p>
<p>Do the colleges just know the name or does the GC mention he's an alum? At my son's school, they write so many recs, some kids apply to 3 schools, some 12. They give the same "generic" rec to each school unless it's a special circumstance and they feel they need to add something else. To personalize so many would seem like a lot of work.
I realize though certain schools would have different approaches though.
On a side note, I was reasonably satisfied with my S's GC, but got a different respect for her listening to all the calls she makes, reproaching students for late paperwork (again) and keeping everything organized during one of my visits. She looks so sweet but one of the other GC's told me she could be a tiger when she thinks a school is unfair. She's gotten some kids off the WL bringing certain things to the colleges attention they might of missed. She wishes SAT's didn't exist sometimes but tries to make sure a solid student isn't penalized that took it once or twice, and another 5 times (that year) and could afford all the preps. She said once she had 2 students apply to their dream match school. One got in with an SAT over 1400, but he was affluent and took prep couses (class and online) and brought his score up a lot. The other student matched him in class, but only took it twice with a lower 1300 score. She commended the first for working so hard, but he wasn't really "smarter" just learned how to take the test better. Usually colleges see that, they go on the school record a lot, but in this case they didn't. She got the second kid off the WL after a phone call, but that doesn't always happen. It must be very stressful for GC's that care around April, I wouldn't want to do it, but I'm glad they do.</p>