<p>I know a professor as a personal friend. Would it help if he wrote a recommendation for me?</p>
<p>you only can send one optional reference...choose wisely.</p>
<p>well, if he/she knows you personally, then sure. but if your simply looking to use his/her title, then i dont think you should send it in (and if you do, it'll probably only aggravate the adcoms.</p>
<p>Unless this prof knows you in an academic context a rec probably wouldn't help. I did a summer program at Stanford and had my prof from that program write a rec and I'm pretty sure that helped. In a situation like that a rec from a Stanford prof might help, but otherwise probably not.</p>