<p>So yesterday my mom comes up to me and says “blah blah blah wants to write you a rec. I work with him; he graduated from Yale. [He may have been something more important at Yale; I can’t remember.] I talk about you all the time and he thinks you’re cool. Get your resume together.”</p>
<p>Well well well.
A) The deadline was Nov. 1…this rec would probably take another week, minimum, to get there.
B) The man has never met me…he’d be just spitting out my resume, which I’ve already sent in.
C) Already have 2 recs in.</p>
<p>That would be REALLY BAD. That letter would (rightly) only seem to be plying a Yale connection. On top of it, he doesn’t know you from Adam and would only be parroting things Yale already knows about you. Yale wants recs that can speak about your character beyond what the first two have said. If I were forced to read it, I’d be annoyed, frankly.</p>
<p>Have your mother read this from Yale’s website and ask her to politely decline the offer:</p>
<p>Is it OK if I submit supplementary letters of recommendation?</p>
<p>We strongly discourage students from submitting more than the two required letters from teachers and the letter from a guidance counselor or college advisor that accompanies the School Report Form. Additional letters can have the effect of cluttering an application file, often repeating what has been said elsewhere, and can leave a reader wondering which letters are the most important recommendations. Three, four, or even five letters from teachers rarely do more work for a candidate than two.</p>
<p>That said, we try to be flexible about the need, in isolated cases, for students to submit an additional letter. If you feel there really is a need to send an extra recommendation, one that will add substantially to your application, be sure it is labeled “supplementary” to avoid confusion. </p>
<p>Ditto what T26 said, but with extra emphasis on how tacky it is to try to work a Yale connection, especially when you’ve never met the person. If I were an admissions officer and you were a borderline case, I’d choose someone else because of what you were so blatantly trying to do. My bet is that they get annoyed even when people try to work legitimate Yale connections.</p>