My professor may not write well, should i still use his LOR Forum

[john1990]

I would like to use a professor that i had sophomore year as a recommender because he knew me when i was in community college. I think this would balance out well with my 2 other LOR's which are from professors from my junior and senior year.

The only problem is that in an email he sent me to confirm that he submitted the LOR it became apparent that he may not be the best professor. The way he writes resembles the way he speaks, which is choppy because he spent most of his life in his native country in South America. Besides this weakness he is one of my favorite professor's, and he is a great teacher. Also, I think that he will have good things to say about me.

So should i use his LOR? Could it help that he may add some diversity to my pool of recommendations?

[stilles]

I would advise against it. LORs are not that important anyways, and if you are waitlisted at a few schools, you can send that LOR to help you get admitted.

HTH

[hyakku]

I'm not sure I agree, just to give perspective on the other side of this debate, I think it would be important to know whether you are ready to apply and he's holding you up, or if you haven't finished. If its the former, I would send and not worry about it, but if it's the latter, I don't see why schools would hold it against you that your teacher isn't a native english speaker, especially if he has glowing, genuine things to say about you.

I'm sure they read recs from people that have studied engineering / physics and have native Chinese/Russian speakers write recs for those interested in IP law all the time, I seriously doubt they will see some poor syntax and instead of logically concluding, "Oh, he's a professor, so he obviously has some type of intelligence; english probably isn't his first language" think, "Ugh, obviously this applicant is a fucking idiot since his rec. shows that all of his teachers didn't speak english perfectly! DING bitch!"

Or maybe they will and I have a bit too much confidence in adcomm committees. I highly doubt that though.

[snailio]

They deal with this all the time, don't worry about it.

[ahduth]

He has great things to say about you.
They deal with foreign academics all the time.
LORs are quite low down on the list of requirements anyhow.

I'd grab him.

[071816]

Is it just me or does this guy make like 16 threads per day?