<p>Does anyone know if a letter of recommendation from a Upenn professor can increase my daughter's chances?</p>
<p>You get one “Other Recommender” for Penn on the common app. If your D isn’t using it for someone else, and the Penn professor is willing and has useful things to say, I suspect it can’t hurt. On the other hand, if D has an “other recommender” who knows her better, that might be more valuable. When my son visited Penn, he met with the department head for his probable major for 30 minutes, which he will include in his “Why Penn?” essay.</p>
<p>rule of thumb for rec letter writers: It’s not “who” writes the letter but “what” does it say about the student. If the Penn prof oversaw academic work by your daughter, great. If he/she is just a family friend, then it’s worse than worthless – because you should have instead sent a note in by a boss, club supervisor, coach, etc.</p>
<p>Now that just doesn’t make any sense. If someone who works there hand delivers a note about how great you are, admissions counselors are at least out of curiosity going to look at your application again. And once they match up who you are with your application, you can really stand out. There is literally no way it would hurt you in the slightest, and no way it wouldn’t help. I think this all relates to the fact that it can always be partially about who you know. After all, a big part of life is making connections. If you took the time to let a Penn professor get to know you, props to you. You really want to go there and are letting the school know that.</p>
<p>son: I’m open to the possibility that the prof personally knows salient info about OP’s kid. But since that wasn’t in the post, I’m giving general info. A family friend’s rec letter, even a faculty member, won’t amount to much because it won’t say much.</p>