<p>I babysit for someone who attended Columbia University (my #1 pick!) and I was wondering if I should ask her for a letter of recommendation or should I save those for the teachers? Thanks!</p>
<p>I would say no. You should only send an additional letter if you worked very closely on something special with someone, like internship or research and they can add some insight academically or to your work ethic and character. In those cases it would not be necessary for the letter writer to have gone to the college. </p>
<p>Some people may say you can make a case since this person knows you well (assuming you have been doing it for a significant time) as a babysitter and can talk about your reliability and your character. But I think you only want to burden the admissions officer with an additional letter if it is something special.</p>
<p>Such a letter won’t be useful or helpful, for the reasons BrownParent outlined. </p>
<p>And if you’re asking a college admissions officer with a mountain of reading to get through to read something that isn’t going to be useful to him or her, then that’s not good.</p>