<p>Someone in my immediate family is a professor at an ivy-league school. My stats are below average, but does it help with admission chances having him being a professor?</p>
<p>Is he your father? Then no.</p>
<p>So being an uncle there is no point to even approach him asking?</p>
<p>Unless he is your legal guardian (i.e. raising you), then NO. For children of faculty, there can be incentives. Since you aren’t, he can’t help you besides advising. You get no extra advantage.</p>
<p>Slight disagreement with T26E4. While you can’t get any direct benefit as you could if this person was your parent, he could still write you a personal letter of recommendation (assuming he knows you well), and that might do you some good. With below average stats, it won’t make a difference.</p>
<p>Oh well thank you t26E4. I was just asking because my family has this idea that I can by some luck get into an ivy-league and they are going over every possible idea they have to try and get me in, but with this information I will be able to tell them to stop trying lol.</p>
<p>slight disagreement w/you, Pancaked. Unless prof uncle were very secure in his position (tenured), writing an obviously biased rec letter would be a rather tactless thing to do and put him in a bad light and only produce something that any serious reader would immediately discount. I mention the point about tenure to say he would face less ramifications – it still wouldn’t help the student an iota.</p>
<p>And adding to T26E4 I wouldnt want to put him in a position where he feels like he should if it could injure his position at the university.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine being on an admissions committee, reading a letter from a professor at the school recommending his nephew for admission, and discounting it–but then again, I’ve never been on an admissions committee, and letters from family friends are always discouraged (unless you had a working relationship with them).</p>
<p>Really? I can. </p>
<p>After years of teaching, I have learned that when a mom or dad tells me what kind of student Junior is, I should wait and see, and then decide for myself. Parents can give me a lot of useful information about their kids, but parents sometimes give a very skewed assessment of their own kids’ academic potential. Or sometimes even, of their kids’ performance in school, because parents make their judgments based not on what happened in school, but on what they know about what happened in school.</p>
<p>Similarly, I would be very skeptical about a letter from an uncle that talked about his niece’s or nephew’s intellect or his academic performance. That is the kind of assessment I would want from a teacher, not from a relative. </p>
<p>And if this uncle’s “personal letter of recommendation” would be just to say, “Ajrgcpro is a great person, with fine character,” that’s not going to count for anything at Ivies or their peers, particularly when the applicant has “below average” academic qualifications. Highly selective colleges and universities are academic institutions first and foremost. They want to enroll top-notch students who also have interesting extracurricular accomplishments, sterling character, etc., rather than jazz clarinetists or paragons of virtue who also study a little bit on the side.</p>
<p>My thought was the uncle could say “Ajrgcpro would fit in to <college>'s academic and social culture” and little else. Plus, this is an uncle, not a parent, so different dynamic. Relatives are biased but being a professor at the college he’s applying to gives him a unique perspective. </college></p>
<p>I have a very well-respected professor who sent admissions a personal note to recommend his niece and try to give her some advantage. She didn’t get in, ultimately, but he didn’t seem to think it was inappropriate. Though she did g</p>
<p>Unless the relative is your parent, no. Just no.</p>
<p>A niece once contacted everyone in my family asking for all the schools we attended, undergrad and grad with our majors and degrees when she was applying to schools. It was awkward - if a person went to a prestigious college they felt she was trying to ride on their coat tails.</p>