Hello! This summer, i did an internship in both a political NGO (monitoring the Hellenic Parliament for transparency) and a hotel. Both of my employers (the one of which created the NGO is a Harvard alumnus) are willing to provide me with some well-written recommendation letters. Should i grab this opportunity and include these recommendations to my common application?
Reach schools:
Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Georgetown
Nobody can answer this with certainty because there are too many unknowns. Here are some things to consider when you decide whether to do this:
Although it seems like a letter from an alumnus of the college would carry a huge amount of weight for admissions, in most cases it really doesn’t. Unless the letter is from a current and very influential employee, or the alumnus is very famous/involved/influential and is truly taking up your cause, just a letter from a general alumnus of the college doesn’t really make much - if any - difference. Heck, many colleges don’t even give much weight to an alumni interview, so they sure as heck aren’t going to care a whole lot more about a random letter received from a random alumnus.
For each college where you’re applying, be sure to read very carefully the admissions instructions. Some colleges are open to additional letters or materials, some expressly state not to send additional letters or materials. Follow their directions.
Understand what these recommendation letters will say about you and how that fits with what you’re showing in your app. Colleges aren’t just looking for letters that have general praise, they’re looking for very specific things. If these LoRs don’t have those very specific things, the LoRs won’t help and could even hurt though they sound nice on the surface. Think long and hard about what the colleges are looking for and what the letters will say before you decide if they will add to - or detract from - your overall app.
To give you a real world example, my son had two fairly advanced (for his age) paid jobs prior to his college app and both his employers offered to write him a LoR. He politely declined one employer and accepted the offer of the other, but only sent the letter to some of the colleges (the ones that stated that they would accept additional LoRs). Why did he decline one and accept the other? Both were from respected businesspeople with prestigious degrees. The one he declined would have been a very positive letter, but wouldn’t have said anything that added to what he was showing colleges in his app: it would have spoken to how he was intelligent and hard working, reliable, etc, but those were all things that were already shown in the rest of his app. The letter he accepted described some aspects that were tougher to show in the rest of his app: how he cold called the owner to obtain the opportunity, how he pitched a unique and advanced idea, how he’s using self-taught advanced concepts to do something the business hadn’t been able to do before, how he’s helping the business launch into new products and areas.
So think about what the letters will say, how they will add to your app and whether or not the colleges actually want them. Good luck.