<p>okay i have a peculiar situation. my grandfather's friend (and business partner) is a very veryyyyy admirable alumnus of andover (who i don't feel comfortable adressing the name of). the school brags about that family all of the time and they have created a lot of publicity for the school in the past few years).. question is: if i get a letter of reccomendation from him (i guess so that he could say i'm qualified, for he would know because he's experienced it), would that be considered.. i don't know. is it a bad idea? i emphasize the notability of this person and how damn proud they are of the father-son couple.</p>
<p>PS: I contacted Andover and they said that submitting multiple letters of reccomendation from alumni is encouraged.</p>
<p>Of course you should send a letter of recomendation! Why on earth wouldn't you? No, really, why would you not? What's the concern? The only time when you definitely shouldn't send in more recomendations is if you have something like ten, and they're all saying the same thing.</p>
<p>well it might seem.. elitist? again, this guy is.. hugeee.</p>
<p>Yes, you should submit the recommendation.</p>
<p>how much do you think it will help?</p>
<p>I don't know how much it will help. I imagine that Admissions will pay a little extra attention to your application. All else being equal, they might select you over other equally qualified candidates. The recommendation should not be generic, and should demonstrate that he knows you.
Blairt -- I am only speculating. I imagine that there will be quite a few letters of recommendation from notable alums. It won't hurt you, and it could help.</p>
<p>I think the recommendations from alums arer ehepful on some levels (my math teacher was an alum of one of the school si applied to and could say how they school would be a good fit for me) as long as its written eliquently.</p>
<p>Agree with Burb Parent on the letter not being generic.</p>
<p>I'll add that you should find out how many applicants he writes letters for. If you are a rare one, this is a great thing. If he writes a dozen a year, it probably doesn't mean much.</p>
<p>rbupe, you mean eloquently?</p>
<p>I'm getting an alum rec, from someone who donated a building there. He and his brother are pretty big on donations to Andover.</p>
<p>Is he the president? Because they are a father-son couple. Haha.</p>
<p>I think that the most important thing with recs is that the person knows you. If it is generic it will not help all that much, but if they know you on a personal level it could help a lot. And as goaliedad said if they are reading a dozen of the exact same letters every year, it does not show a wise choice on your part. They'd rather have a letter from someone that knows you than have you name drop.</p>
<p>okay ill just say it because i cant get my point across w/o telling you who he is. it's george bush sr. he's a very busy man as you may know so i doubt he will handwrite a letter for me.. seriously. he's very busy. doesnt matter who my grandfather is or the business they've done together. do you think it would still help? i mean, to have an ex-president write his alma mater a letter on my behalf.. even if it were signed w/ a stamp.. i mean, that's cool.</p>
<p>Just send it. It couldn't do any harm. I still don't understand why you wouldn't.</p>
<p>lol because it might look elitist.</p>
<p>blairt, if you think that it's bad to send in a recomendation from an alumnis that isn't prominante, and it's bad to send one from one that is, then you really can't get a recomendation from an alumnis. If he knows cares enough about you to write you a letter, then you should send it. If not, then don't bother; generic letters aren't really valued.</p>
<p>Doesn't change my assessment of the situation. I'm sure many people ask GHWB for letters of rec. </p>
<p>The question is does he have anything personal to say from the heart (does he have firsthand knowledge of you personally) and does he write many similar letters for other applicants?</p>
<p>i doubt he writes many letters for andover. and he is a family friend, but it's not like i refer to him as "georgiee boy" or "shnookums"</p>
<p>If he does have something personal to say about you, I think your grandfather could send him a letter at his office requesting such a recommendation (they generally give personal friends a code to put on the letter so it actually gets personal attention - The staff will do the legwork). Usually Presidents (or ex-Presidents) take an hour or so a week to personally sign these letters. I have an old friend who used to work for Warren Burger when he was chief justice of the Supreme Court and such stuff was handled that way at his office.</p>
<p>lol.. i wonder what his secret code is. maybe mygrandfather knows. ABRACADABRA! Sesame!</p>
<p>if it's like having the mars or the fords write for an applicant to hotchkiss, or having the forbes write for an applicant to milton, u r in</p>