<p>One of my family members is friends (although not amazingly close friends but enough to at least get me a chance to meet him) with a professor from Brown. I emailed him a few days ago and he emailed me back saying basically how my research background is “very diverse” for a high school student (I was a siemens semifinalist… but that’s besides the point) and how I have been doing a “job well done” so far. He also sent me a few of his papers to read and I will hopefully be able to get through a few of them within the next week of so to email him back. I am most likely going to meet him in person over Feb break. If I get to know him… will it help? I’m not sure if I will get a rec out of it but if he at least puts in a good word will it improve my chances? If it makes a difference I would like to go into research as a career but his research is in a topic completely difference from mine.
Thanks for the help 
I would have copy and pasted the email itself but just in case he goes on CC it would be embarrassing if he saw it lol (it’s doubtful that he does but just in case).</p>
<p>I don’t know the answer to this question, but I took a class taught by a Brown professor this summer, and he wrote me a recommendation. I really don’t think it hurts at all haha, especially if they are impressed with your intelligence and character. Not sure how much it helps, but it certainly differentiates us from the rest of the applicant pool.</p>
<p>Thanks! I figured by the lack of response but relatively high number of views no one really knows lol. I did summer@brown this summer but unfortunately my professor was from a different university >.<. I guess I’ll just see where this takes me… maybe I’ll get to meet a professor from a department I’m actually interested in through him :).</p>
<p>It obviously can’t hurt but the role of a letter of recommendation in the admissions process is not to comment on your academic abilities or the scope of your research achievements. If they’re really as outstanding as this professor seems to think they are, your admissions officer will see them too. The relevance of a Brown professor being able to add an additional voice to you application is limited to his ability to comment on what you will bring to campus as an individual or how he (based on his own experiences) thinks you will be able to fit in at Brown. Beyond that, the fact that he’s a Brown man says little more about you than that you’re resourceful. My advice is always to refrain from adding materials to your application that don’t contribute anything new. If all this professor can eventually say is that this kid can do research, then it really isn’t worth much.</p>
<p>" the role of a letter of recommendation in the admissions process is not to comment on your academic abilities or the scope of your research achievements."</p>
<p>I’m not sure what to say here.</p>
<p>wolfmanjack: I guess the correct response would be: The role of a letter of recommendation IS to comment on a student’s academic abilities, scope of research achievements, and other personal qualities. So if a recommendation cannot comment on those or add significantly to your file, then it is extraneous material.</p>
<p>I just had to face-palm.</p>
<p>I apologize; I didn’t express myself clearly. By commenting on academic abilities and research activities I meant things like:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This would seem very odd to you but in this part of the world, a recommendation often means exactly that and its real impact is based on the person who actually signs the letter. It’s an entirely different thing to give an informed personal opinion of the candidate’s academic/research activities. For example:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I should’ve clarified but at the same time, it’s unlikely that most professors would have gotten to know an applicant well enough to write something like the second especially with limited contact.</p>
<p>I think the main difference between a recommendation from a teacher and that from a professor at Brown is that Brown professors can tell the admissions office where you fit within the scope of Brown students. This is valuable. Also valuable about professor recommendations is their ability to signal your interest. </p>
<p>This being said, just because you CAN get a recommendation does not mean that you should. Unless you have been in a class with the professor, have worked with them, or intend to work with them it may come off as getting a letter from someone your dad introduced you to.</p>
<p>My intentions of contacting him weren’t really just for a recommendation. I guess it was more to find out about Brown and maybe get in contact with professors in a department I’m actually interested in. Plus, it makes for an interesting interview conversation 
Thanks for the advice though!</p>
<p>My friend, a valedictorian with a 2340 SAT score, had a music teacher that she knew very well fighting for her at an adcom meeting – she got deferred. Moral of the story? You really can’t depend these things when it comes to admissions.</p>
<p>Use the contact to find out more about Brown and about what research in college is about. It would be presumptious to ask him for a reccommendation, since he has not had class with you or know you very well. Any research is valuable, be it in your ultimate area of interest or not. And don’t forget to keep an open mind, so you can find your passions through exploration.</p>
<p>And good for you to be discrete enough not to quote a personal email to you in a public forum. ALL kinds of people read these boards, including admissions officers.</p>
<p>doubt it. Unless you’re really REALLY good.</p>
<p>I would hope it makes no difference. I am a faculty member, and know lots of people there, some quite well, and I would never think to contact them regarding my son. </p>
<p>If I get the sense there is any scent of an inside job with this sort of thing, my S can go somewhere else and they’d be lucky to have him.</p>
<p>Yeah, hate to burst everyone else’s bubble, but if you get to know him that’d probably make you a lock for admission.</p>
<p>Yeah, hate to burst YOUR (misinformed) bubble but that’s not true…at all.</p>
<p>@Amadeuic:
- There’s 20 admissions officers working full time on applications. There’s 681 professors. What are the chances that a professor will have an “inside track” to the admissions committee?
- An insubstantial recommendation does little to nothing to help you: your application has the same things in it that would impress your professor friend
- There’s absolutely no way you could even know the influence something like this would have: anyone who’s likely to get a professor’s recommendation is also likely to be a very good candidate, which means they have every ability of getting in on their own. EVEN IF you had statistics proving people with recs from profs. at Brown had a higher chance of getting in, that says nothing because of the qualifications of the people who can get a rec from said prof.</p>
<p>All I know is that I am a professor at a very good place, and I have no input for admissions, even for my own S here…</p>
<p>I have faculty friends at every place my S applied and have talked to none of them about admission, nor would I, nor would it have any effect other than making me seem like a tool.</p>
<p>They’re not going to raise the dead, here. If a person has an 1800 on his SATs, it’s too late no matter what.</p>
<p>But Joe 1450, who is a decent candidate but hardly a shoo-in?</p>
<p>Yeah, working with a professor (don’t doubt for a second that he won’t write a letter of recommendation, assuming things go well) is going to put him over the hump.</p>
<p>And you all have to be joking if you think that there aren’t faculty who are interested in the Admissions process. Maybe not the guy who’s 35 and whose children aren’t even in junior high, but the guy who’s 55 and his old roommate is calling in a favor? Probably very interested.</p>
<p>Professors can pick people out, if they so choose.</p>
<p>It’s not like it doesn’t happen.</p>
<p>Sorry, wolfmanjack, chsowlflax17, and Nigiri, but yeah, it’s going to have a big impact.</p>
<p>Sort of but not really. I think sometimes it’s easy to forget that when you are sending messages online as a Brown '13er that you may be talking to University faculty and employees and should probably listen what they have to say. You’re a kid at the school and work in no capacity on the admissions committee.</p>