Rec Letter from a member of the Board of Visiters

Question

Just curious....

It looks like I can get a good rec letter from a person that I worked with who is member on the Board of Visiters from a certain school.

How much does this help me?

pelihu · Answer

According to every single Adcom, the title of the recommender and their relation to the school has no impact on the decision. It's up to you whether you believe that or not.

homefry · Answer

I don't believe that. I mean if you get a letter from the President of the Alumni Association or some member on the Board of Visitors, how can the adcom reject an applicant the pres recommended?

What's your take on it?

pelihu · Answer

I guess my take is that it depends on who is writing the reccomendation and what it actually says.

If it's truly someone with tremendous connections and power at the school, and the recommendation really says something like, "we must get this person" or "this person is once-in-a-lifetime" then I think that would be hard for adcoms to ignore.

If it's just some random alumni who doesn't really know you that well and gives a general recommendation, it probably won't help as much as an enthusiastic recommendation from someone that is a credible judge of talent.

I'm not sure what a "board of visitors" is, but if you worked closely with this person and he's enthusiastic about recommending you, it would be helpful.

From what I have been able to gather, recommendations trail GMAT, work experience & leadership/extracurriculars by a wide margin in terms of importance. I do not believe that even highly influential recommendations can overcome lackluster work experience or a low GMAT score. Now if you had $1,000,000 to donate to the school, that's another story...

rhyme · Answer

An interesting thing...

While at the GSB, reviewing people's recs, the adcom mentioned that the rec had come from a Director. In the case of one of the candidates, they seemed to put quite a bit of weight on the rec.

I think it's a balancing act to an extent - you want the most senior person you can get, but you also want someone who can speak to your abilities directly, not someone who will make generic and meaningless statements.

Rec Letter from a member of the Board of Visiters

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