I’m applying Regular decisions to many schools such as Vanderbilt and Stanford. I also happen to have known a professor at Vanderbilt for a long time. He said he would be happy to write me a letter of recommendation. Also my mom knows the president of Stanford pretty well and I wonder if she should ask him for his recommendation. I hope to get in either one of them so I hope to increase my chances by getting some extra support given that my SAT score is not quite there. Actually my 670 SAT reading score is the only one factor of my app that’s not quite at the top level. All my other stats are great. So I don’t know if it would be a cut-off although colleges never say they do cut-off.Thanks.
Since you’re doing RD I would recommend retaking your SAT in the meantime. However, those are awesome connections to have. If they can write you a strong and personalized letter of rec, it can’t hurt your application!
I definitely agree that if they can write you a personalized letter of recommendation, then it would be a benefit to your app. But you should DEFINITELY take that SAT again! Get some prep books and study as hard as you can for it.
I disagree 100% with @yonceonhismouth. This isn’t how it works.
Have you worked under the Vandy prof? You make no mention of that. If not, then it’s worthless.
Don’t have your mother embarrass herself asking Tessier-Lavigne who doesn’t know you from a hole in the wall.
Rec letters are about YOU, not the letter writer. An enthusiastic 2nd year teacher at your school’s notes are 8000x better than some stuffed shirt who doesn’t know you as an employee or student.
Thank you all for replying. I think I’ll think more about it. But I would definitely have the Vandy prof write a recommendation for me cuz I did work with him in a research lab before and it went super well.
Nix the Stanford connection.
http://admission.stanford.edu/site/faq/index.html#faq_2_3
- What about additional evaluators?
You may submit one additional recommendation from someone who knows you well, other than a teacher or counselor, and can provide information about you not available elsewhere. Please remember that a letter from a famous person or Stanford alumnus will not help us reach a decision if that person is unable to add new insights to your application.