Stanford "Optional Reference" Letter

current_student
Thu, 31 Aug 2006 01:38:29 +0000

&lt;a href="http://www.stanford.edu/dept/uga/applying/1_2e5_lettersofrec.html%5DTeacher"&gt;http://www.stanford.edu/dept/uga/applying/1_2e5_lettersofrec.html:

Teacher Reference Forms 4 and 5
Qualitative accounts of your academic abilities are important to us, and your high school teachers are usually our best sources of this information. We require two letters of recommendation from teachers who have taught you in grades 11 and/or 12 in two different subject areas from among the following: English, mathematics, science, foreign language and history/social studies. The best piece of advice as you choose teacher recommenders is to choose people who like you and who will share unique examples of your academic strengths and personal qualities. We will accept a maximum of two teacher references.

Optional Reference Form 6
If there is one other person who knows you well and can contribute something new about you, you can ask that person to complete the Optional Reference Form. With this additional recommendation, the same important guideline still applies: we want to be impressed by what they say about you, not by who they are. A letter from a famous person or Stanford alumnus is not going to help us reach a decision if that person is unable to add new insights to your application. This is not required, and most applicants will not submit an optional recommendation. We will accept a maximum of one optional reference letter.



maybe you can ask him to write it in his own language and then have someone translate it or something. but i guess if you friend is a good writer, then why not. i know a guy who had his girfriend write an optional rec for him and he got in. but that’s one person. i don’t know many, if any, other people that used the extra rec option.