Any recommendations on how many and how important External recommendations are - My daughter will have the traditional 2 teacher and 1 guidance counseler. I of her teachers will be her Chem teacher who has his PhD. She has a chance to submit two alumni interviews/recommendations both of which are active with the school. Any ideas on how influential these can be with Vandy?
Interviews don’t really have an impact at any school - a good interview and alumni recommendation is just another checked box in favor of an applicant, but won’t be cause to overlook an area where another applicant is more competitive. Recommendations from teachers, however, are enormously important at all top schools, on par with essays and the narrative of an application - they fill in the blanks between achievements and scores with insight into personality and potential contribution, so they’re hugely influential. Interviews, not really - if you get one, great! Go for it and make it good. If not, eh. Doesn’t matter so much.
I wouldn’t send in any letters of recommendations from people associated with Vandy unless they have reason to know your student personally academically or directly in extra curricular work. If your Vandy “related” friends “insist”, I guess I really don’t know if that is wise or not. With 30 thousand applicants, tons of adults have friends who are successful alum. Particularly in cities where Vandy used to draw from heavily before making the transition to national footprint university (Texas cities, Atlanta for example) My son “interviewed” with a Vandy alum locally to get to know the school better but we were not acquainted with him. Rather than ask him for a letter of reference which would have been far-fetched, son mentioned learning something from him about Vandy in an essay. A strong letter from someone related to employment, research or service work would be a different matter.
I agree with Faline2. It’s always a bit of a toss-up to have a family friend who is connected to Vanderbilt send in a letter of recommendation. Feels a bit off. I would stick with teachers, counselors, coaches, employers, etc.