<p>My D has fallen in love with a school which may be slightly outside her reach, unless she surprises with her ACT results in a few weeks. She has visited this campus several times and has developed a very good rapport and relationship with the Chairman of the department she plans to major in. Here are my questions:</p>
<p>Would it be inappropriate for her to ask this professor if he could put in a good word for her with Admissions? She will see him in 2 weeks and would ask him in person. </p>
<p>If he says he would put in a good word, would that have any impact on her application? She is not a far reach for the school with the possible exception of her SAT scores, which are slightly below the bottom 25%. </p>
<p>It doesn’t seem inappropriate to me. After all, coaches put in a good word for kids all the time.</p>
<p>She should be prepared for the chairman to say that s/he has little influence. Generally speaking, I assume that not putting people on the spot is a good idea. In other words, it MAY be better to make the request via snail or email. But I an a person who is not comfortable with the hard sell at all.</p>
<p>Well…it depends on how admissions looks at applications…and it depends on the school. At a lot of places, the only admits below the 25%ile on those standardized tests are recruited athletes.</p>
<p>I think your daughter would be putting this professor in an awkward position. The reality is that unless she has won a major prize in his field, he probably has very little leverage with admissions. And that is probably what he will tell her.</p>
<p>I would encourage your daughter to apply to this school but to also look for others with similar characteristics that are perhaps better statistical matches for her. She may get accepted, but she needs to have other options she likes just in case.</p>
<p>And, if possible, I would not have her visit this dream school much more. She is developing an attachment to it that has the potential to set her up for a big disappointment.</p>
<p>If there is an essay that asks why she is considering that school, she should mention the major she is interested in, and how helpful Dr. *** has been when she has met with him.
Then, the admissions office may contact him themselves to ask about her.</p>
<p>Every time when my older daughter visited a school, she always made a point of meeting a professor or two. She met a professor at Stanford and Columbia who really liked her. She did ask them to write her a recommendation letter. Both of them BCC her on the email they sent to adcoms. Unfortunately, in her case, neither case helped her. My daughter’s stats were 50% and above for those schools.</p>
<p>A friend of mine’s son got to know a Dartmouth professor very well over a year period. His stats were actually below 50%. Apparently the professor really pushed for him. He was the only kid that got in ED his year.</p>
<p>To answer your question, there is nothing wrong in asking the professor to put in a good word. If he is a chairman then his word maybe worth more, but don’t be surprised if it doesn’t help.</p>
<p>Perhaps instead of putting the professor on the spot, she could ask for his advice? As in “this is a reach school for me but it really is my first choice of where I’d like to attend. Do you have any advice on how I can make my application stronger?” Then if he wants to offer help, super.</p>
<p>I see nothing wrong with this idea. You never know, he may do it and it may help. Not asking guarantees that he won’t help.</p>
<p>You never know.</p>
<p>The question could be artfully worded to avoid putting him on the spot. For example, something like:</p>
<p>“I’d love to be admitted here and study in your department and with you. I don’t know if you are able to contact admissions on my behalf or not. If you could, though, I would be most grateful. Just in case you can, here is my contact information.”</p>
<p>I would ask him via email after her meeting. It would give the professor a chance to think about his response, without necessary put him on the spot.</p>
<p>These are all great suggestions. I fully agree that any request for a recommendation could not put the professor in an uncomfortable position. D is not aggressive in that way and thought she would bring it up in a light, casual manner like saying “it would be great if you could put in a good word for me” or something along those lines. Honestly, I don’t think D would make the request unless there was an opening. </p>
<p>thumper1-I could not agree more with your comment that D may be developing an attachment to a school that is a reach but I have never seen her so driven to do everything she can to give her an edge to be admitted. Fortunately, D is a realist an knows the school is a long shot but she wants to feel that she has done everything she can to be admitted. </p>
<p>I appreciate everyones feedback, they are very helpful</p>
<p>Unfortunately, this makes it a far reach. As Thumper said, the kids with the stats below the 25% are typically stand out athletes (or URMs or development). Even a legacy would have little chance.</p>
<p>It doesn’t hurt to ask, but in my experience profs have little clout with admissions.</p>
<p>My daughter was accepted into the following colleges where her test scores were at or slightly below 25%:</p>
<p>University of Chicago
UC Berkeley
Barnard
NYU</p>
<p>She is not a URM, athlete, or legacy and certainly not a development case. (NYU was her top choice but had to be turned down because of inadequate financial aid).</p>
<p>There is a heavily stat-conscious myth on the CC board which simply is based on inadequate information. My daughter had a strong but not amazing high school GPA, decent essays, good recommendations, and a few things that made her stand out at the colleges she applied to. </p>
<p>If the ONLY weakness is test scores, than the college may not be nearly the reach you think it is. An academic prof probably has little influence, but a lot depends on the school and the major.</p>
<p>My daughter had a very strong background in studying a less common foreign language, and one thing the reach schools that admitted her had in common was very strong but underenrolled departments for that language. So I do think that my daughter’s demonstrated interest in that studying that language was a tipping point for admissions – she offered something the college needed and wanted. </p>
<p>This is not rocket science – its simply the sort of research that students should be doing about colleges instead of focusing on test scores. By definition, 25% of all admitted students have scores in the under-25% range – all of those students have some quality that the college wants that made them stand out in some way, but that quality certainly doesn’t have to be athlete/legacy/donor/URM. </p>
<p>If your daughter is focusing on an underenrolled major – or if she has some special accomplishment or interest that would make her a particularly strong asset for the department – that academic department chair may very well want to go to bat for her. I would encourage her to go the route advocated by Olymom.</p>
<p>Before considering any of the very good suggestions above, perhaps your daughter needs to think about whether or not she would be happy at a college where more than 75% of the students have better academic credentials than she does. </p>
<p>For some young people, this would not be a problem at all. Others prefer to be average, and still another group prefers to be among the most qualified students on campus. It’s a personality thing.</p>
<p>It seems to me that if an applicant meets with a professor and the professor is really impressed by said applicant, he/she would put in a word to admissions without being asked. (Granted, this is probably especially true in a department that is trying to strengthen its standing at the school by enlarging its number of students majoring in it). Unfortunately, I think outright asking a professor to put in a word is inappropriate and awkward no matter how tactfully done.</p>
<p>First, I don’t think it’s inappropriate, although I do think the language of “put in a good word for me” is outdating and a little flip. Perhaps asking him/her to “let admissions know we’ve talked” would be more neutral and allow the prof to interpret it as s/he liked. And that certainly isn’t inappropriate.</p>
<p>D was deferred from the ED school. She contacted the chair of a department she was seriously interested in majoring in. She detailed her experience and knowledge, discussing specific works in the field and engaging his ideas on the subject. He emailed back a few days later with his responses to the work she discussed with this: “Keep your chin up. They do take deferrals in the RD round.”</p>
<p>We got the feeling he did talk to admissions before he wrote that because I don’t think he would have given her false hope, and she was admitted.</p>
<p>S made contact with all the chairs of the music departments of the schools he was interested in. He was admitted to Williams (which was a reach – not because of his stats, just before of their admissions numbers) but not Dartmouth where he was also deferred ED. However, at Dartmouth the chair literally said to him, “I’d love to go to bat for you, but I have no influence over admissions decisions.”</p>
<p>It all worked out because in the end he really wanted to go to Williams and had one of those “What was I thinking?” moments about Dart.</p>
<p>But in both cases, I am pretty sure professors’ imput was helpful. Neither was in the 25% stat area, though. Both were kind of smack-dab in the middle stats-wise. However D had being from LI against her at Barnard. Geographical diversity is desirable.</p>
<p>At work I wouldn’t offer to give a recommendation unless someone asked for it. </p>
<p>My friend’s son who got into Dartmouth was interested in an obscure major, and the department just received a large grant. I don’t think the professor would have offered if friend’s son didn’t ask in his email. I think in the email he even referenced to how athletic coaches are allowed to have guaranteed recruits and professors are not. Not sure if it actually got the professor fired up. </p>
<p>In life we often need to ask for things, more responsibility, promotion, or money at work. Often it’s awkward and uncomfortable, but if you don’t ask you don’t get.</p>
<p>If the college is competitive for admissions, I’m sure the professor is used to candidates asking for recommendations. I’m sure he has a stock way of deflecting the issue if he doesn’t want to get involved or if he has no influence.</p>
<p>hmom: D is only weak in the area of SAT scores. Her GPA is higher than the average accepted, she is an URM and lives in a geographic area outside the region the school generally attracts. The only real area of weakness is SAT scores, she seems to meet the rest. Hopefully the ACT results will be better. </p>
<p>Marian: I agree with you 100% that D needs to consider whether she would be happy at a school where 75% of the people have better credentials than her. However, it is only in the area of SAT scores where she lags. Your point is well taken though and appreciated.</p>
<p>calmom: Thank you for the encouragement.</p>
<p>mythmom: The “put in a good word for me” is probably outdated since I thought it up. The interesting thing here is that D’s Admissions Counselor recently graduated with the same major D is interested in and this professor was the Chair of the department when she was a student and they know each other well.</p>
<p>I don’t think by any means that a “good word” from the Chair of a department would get her admitted, but it may be one more little thing that can help, especially if you are a borderline candidate. GPA, academic rigor, EC’s and standardized tests still rule the day. I truly appreciate everyones input.</p>
<p>Your daughter was an exception. There are certainly exceptions, but a read of any common data set will tell you they are few and far between. See the under 3.6 thread and others where parents have posted their results for otherwise strong candidates with one weak stat. There are few parents posting what you are–that their kid got in anyway.</p>
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<p>Myth? Again, we have all the public stats issued by the colleges themselves and a slew of information about who is generally in the bottom part of the class.</p>
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<p>Bobby, knowing that she’s a URM changes the picture dramatically. That gives her a MUCH better shot of being accepted with any below 25th percentile stat. The geography really helps too. She should go for it. But I stand by my statement that a white/Asian applicant with under 25th percentile SAT scores has slim chances.</p>
<p>I don’t think it is inappropriate as long as she is comfortable asking the professor. If she is awkward, it could turn into an awkward situation. I would also not bank a whole lot on the rec. I know many kids who got prof recs, mostly those who took high school summer programs at a college and got the prof teaching them to write a great rec and were rejected. Those kids were prime candidates for the school even without the rec and were accepted to similar schools where they did not have an “in” like the rec or summer classes.</p>