<p>Hello All,</p>
<p>I am applying to a few University of California campuses for graduate school. Would recommendations coming from people who were not my university/college professors hurt or help me or does it depend on their status?</p>
<p>I have a former college president and someone who has worked for the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute for Education Sciences who have written recommendations for me. Even though they werent my professors, they are familiar with my academic work, character etc and have known me for more than 10 years. Will their recs be viewed more positively, less positively or about the same as someone who was my professor. </p>
<p>I asked them for recs to help compete against applicants from big name universities. I figure that those applicants might only have recs from professors.</p>
<p>Yes, I also have recs from my actual professors.</p>
<p>Thanks in advance for the input!
;)</p>
<p>Professors are much more preferable. It won’t help or hurt to have other recs. Non-prof recs are only useful if you have actually worked under their capacity. It doesn’t sound like you worked with this guy so I say not worth asking at all.</p>
<p>I would say likely not, or just send one non-academic reference certainly not two. It doesn’t matter if they know what you have done. The school you are applying to will already see that from your application. I don’t think character or personal references are very important or they would ask for them. Those things are usually addressed by the academic references as well-- works well with others, etc. </p>
<p>Or address this question to the college president, he surely will know. And I take it all back if the college president is the president of the one you are applying to.</p>
<p>There is no reason whatsoever to solicit recommendations that are not from professors with whom you have studied. They will not enhance your application. As a matter of fact, they might give the appearance that you are not aware of the nature of graduate applications or graduate study.</p>
<p>If you are applying to a graduate program with a “vocational” component, like education or engineering or business, then letters from work supervisors can be appropriate. Usually, the graduate program will specify whether this option is available or desirable.</p>
<p>The college president is not from any university that I am applying to. We worked on accreditation along with attending committee meetings together at one of the colleges that I attended. So he knows that type of work and effort that I had put into these activities along with having to carry an academic load.</p>
<p>I pretty much hope that these particular recs will highlight my app, since I did not attend a “big name” university.</p>
<p>They will not highlight your application. They will make you appear to be an applicant who does not know that these letters are inappropriate.</p>