<p>Hi everyone! I've just started Senior year and will be applying to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia and Stanford, among other schools. There are three individuals who have written/are offering to write me optional recs and help me in other capacities, although I am unsure whether these would help me, or could potentially leave a bad taste in colleges' mouths. I would thus be forever grateful for any advice!</p>
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<li><p>I spent the last year working personally with our Prime Minister and have secured a rec from him, which I will submit as an optional rec. I know him extremely well and I've been blessed to have received the best rec I could have dreamed of.</p></li>
<li><p>On top of that, my family is very close friends with an alumni-donor who has given Harvard somewhere in the range of $5 million. His four have all graduated from Harvard College. He has been so generous as to offer to help by writing a college rec. He knows me very well personally, but only as family friends, not as a summer boss or anything of the sort. He also suggested meeting with the Dean of Admissions through a request coursed through his office.</p></li>
<li><p>My family is also very close with a current Stanford Professor with close ties to both Harvard and Princeton. She's also a roving Harvard international applicants interviewer for some time during the application season. She's gotten to know me personally, asked me for a CV, and with that has offered to write a rec and appeal my case to the board of admissions to the three schools.</p></li>
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<p>In short, which of the 3 should I include with my application? (the donor being affiliated only with Harvard) Would it be potentially off-putting to send all three in, and have the Prof/Interviewer and Alum-Donor advocate my case through other channels? Suffice it to say these are influential persons, I have not worked with the Prof/Interviewer or the Alum-Donor (unlike the PM with whom I have worked closely) and only know them as family friends. I'm also concerned that the schools would respond with a backlash for attempting to "circumvent" the process? On another note, maybe 3 people trying to help this teenager out is a biiit overdoing it, hence another reason for backlash?</p>
<p>This is a sticky situation and a tricky question (not to mention a long one!). I'd be forever grateful for any response. Thank you very much! =)</p>
<p>I wouldn’t be worried about backlash. Submit the two recommendations you think will bear the most weight (your PM and one other), use your connection with the donor to secure a meeting and that’ll probably do it. I don’t know which route you should take with your other applications, though. </p>
<p>Best of luck!</p>
<p>Thanks for the quick reply misterg! I’m skeptical about having the donor secure a meeting – wouldn’t that sort of leave a bad taste in the admissions committee’s mouth?
Also, you mentioned submitting two recommendations. Would it be overboard to submit all three for this purpose? :/</p>
<p>It might be a bit tacky, but you should really use any advantage you can get. (The Dean, after all, would have to agree to such an interview.) Don’t feel bad – this is as close to an insanely competitive war that you’ll get before you turn 25. </p>
<p>It wouldn’t necessarily be overboard, but considering you’re already submitting two teachers’ recommendations and one by a counselor, you don’t want to bore the committee to death with a mountain of paperwork. According to the articles I’ve read which have focused on the process, the committee will spend a maximum of one hour on a student, and generally only if there’s a heated debate. </p>
<p>Feel free to submit all three, but just keep in mind that you might be taking a risk, especially if they’re together with a complex extracurricular C.V. or any other extraneous information.</p>
<p>I feel as though each and every one of your schemes is exactly that: a scheme likely to backfire. If you have worked/interned under the Prime Minister, and know him for a reason other than just pure connections, I would definitely submit his kind recommendation. The other two individuals are entirely irrelevant to who you are as a person and what you can offer to Harvard College. Listening to many of the replies in this post, it becomes incredibly clear who actually attends or was admitted to Harvard and who sees the school as some status symbol.</p>
<p>Good luck, regardless.</p>
<p>Yeah…who knows the best about you as a person and your work ethics?</p>
<p>A family friend who you want to get a letter from because he is an alum and donates a lot?
Another family friend who has offered to write up a recommendation NOT because she knows you very well and has worked with you but because she is simply a family friend?
Or the prime minister who you’ve worked with who you think wrote the best rec you can receive?</p>
<p>I think the choice is clear here.</p>
<p>And getting your family friends to vouch for you is great. But they should do it because they know you very well, not your family. Adcoms can tell the difference. Keep in mind also, your application has to pass through the normal process: triage, 2 group meetings, 1 final meeting…etc. So vouching for you to the Dean could be helpful but I don’t think it would be too big of a boost. Maybe you should get to know the family friends better.</p>
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<li>I spent the last year working personally with our Prime Minister and have secured rec from him, which I will submit as an optional rec. I know him extremely well and I’ve been blessed to have received the best rec I could have dreamed of.</li>
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<p>-.-
I don’t think “securing” is a right term, and you do know that adcoms frequently visit this site, right?</p>
<p>So your internship with Najib Tun Razak…</p>
<p>You sound like someone who wants to use the “prestige” factor to get in.</p>
<p>Hey, where did my post go? There was nothing which went against any rules of the forum and I didn’t get a message explaining why it was removed :/</p>
<p>Anyways, all I said was as your from The Philippines, surely you mean you worked with the President as opposed to the Prime Minister (as you don’t have PM’s since 1989). So you’ve either worked with Benigno Aquino III or Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. </p>
<p>My point was, you should be careful what you post, as no doubt Harvard admissions committees frequent the site. I can bet you’ll be the only one with this experience on your application - also you should take into account, someone may have just already sent them an e-mail giving them your username which won’t be hard to match up to your actual application given the unique information you have posted on here.</p>
<p>So how did it go OP?</p>