Who submits the optional rec ?

[DavidAlex]

<p>Well, as the title says: Who submits the optional (third) recommendation ?</p>

<p>Currently, I am a bit unsure whether or not I should ask someone. I certainly could, but I guess the recommendations of my parents or friends would be pretty useless and my tennis coach's rec would probably be not as positive as my other recs. </p>

<p>Not that it would be bad - but it would not be extremely positive I think either. We always had an ambigeous relation. Another thing is that he does not know me that well.</p>

<p>Same thing with my guitar teacher.</p>

<p>However, I don't want to transfer the idea, that the only thing in my life is school and that nobody wants to write me a rec aside from my teachers. </p>

<p>Any recommendations ? ;)</p>

[WhatsYourMajor]

<p>What about an employer?</p>

[simba]

<p>We think that the optional rec was the tipping factor in our son's case. It brought out his human side that the 'professional' recs missed.</p>

[DavidAlex]

<p>@ WhatsYourMajor:
Doesn't exist. :/</p>

<p>@simba: That's exactly what I thought and what my intention is. Who wrote it in your son's case ?</p>

[simba]

<p>Father of his friend since 1st grade.</p>

[WindSlicer]

<p>"We think that the optional rec was the tipping factor in our son's case. It brought out his human side that the 'professional' recs missed."</p>

<p>That's exactly what I did/am doing. Getting a really close "coworker" at one of the places I volunteer at -- we're really good friends and she always has optimistic things to say about me. She's in her late 20s and I think she'd write a great application that would stress my personal qualities as only one of my teacher recommendations will allude to non-academic issues.</p>

[btlesgirl]

<p>I was going to do the optional rec (tennis coach) but with GC decided against it for a number of reasons, including the fact that my teachers doing the recs know me very, very well as a person, not just a student, and that I will definitely could not play varsity tennis at Pton. Just putting my two cents in there--that sometimes the optional rec will not add anything add'l but only repeat stuff from your teacher recs.</p>

[RBTrix]

<p>Hey, I've known this professor at my local university for about 4 months. Is it worthwhile to ask him to write me a letter of reference? He knows me pretty well, I think...</p>

[oasis]

<p>Four months seems rather short...it all depends on the degree of familiarity though and whether he/she will just write a generic "This is a very hardworking student." rec.</p>

[system]

<p>i imagine that lots of the teacher recs are filled with generic stuff like the above though.</p>

[theoneo]

<p>The beauty of optional recs is that the first and only criterion for selecting a recommender is whether they know you well and will bring a strong new perspective to your application. Whether that's a professor, a teacher, an employer, or a coworker doesn't matter. So nobody can tell you who should write you a rec because their background matters much less than how much they know you, and only you (and that person) know that.</p>