I’m applying to UChicago, and I’m getting a family friend who’s also an alum to write my “other” recommendation, but do you think I should also include a letter of recommendation from a law firm I interned at? I did six weeks in the summer, in China, forty hours a week, last summer. Which would hold more weight, and could I submit both, or would that just make me seem desperate?
You should think about your application as a whole. What have you told them about in your essays? What have your teachers and GC been likely to have said about you? Will the information these extra letters have touch on something you haven’t really been able to cover and supplement and augment it? For what it’s worth my older son ended up having two outside recommendations. His were both from people who he had done computer programming for, one a med school prof and the other in the industry. Since the one and only CS course my son had taken in high school was freshman year and he hadn’t done anything computer science related in school ECs, we felt they proved that he was indeed the computer nerd he claimed to be in his essays.
As long as the letters say more than Hermione Granger is a lovely young woman who works hard and has a great smile and hangs around Harry Potter a lot, I think you’ll be okay. I’m actually more leary of the alum recommendation than the law office one. At some point you can have too many letters, but I don’t think two outside letters is at a danger point.
OP, go to the UChicago forum. They have an adcom that posts and you can ask questions.
On the face of it, your alumnus “friend” rec is next to worthless. Clearly biased and based on nothing substantive since you don’t indicate any work or research under this friend. Omit that. Submit the law firm supervisor rec letter.
Getting a family or alum friend to write your reference letter is not recommended.
My kid submitted an extra letter to UChicago, the only school she did this for. Her letter was from an alum, but he was also her coach for an academic EC that she did for four years, and finished near the top of the state in senior year. He knew her well in an academic type setting that is very relevant to UChicago. Unless the alum has been a teacher, coach; or direct boss of yours with close observation of your daily work, it won’t mean much.
OP - I think intparent’s personal experience is an example of mathmom’s excellent description of the effective use of recommendations.