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[nsbane]

Admissions committees don't care about letters of recommendation. They can only hurt you when the recommender gives you faint praise and it's pretty obvious they dont know you or think you're that great.

[American_in_China]

The rule with recs is to choose people that know you. Know you well. A TA is a fine choice. Also, as a chinese learned, lower division chinese is no cakewalk. Don't downgrade the class. Learning chinese requires a lot of work ethic, and having someone that can testify to you doing it can only be advantageous.

[NoleMatt]

Admissions committees don't care about letters of recommendation. They can only hurt you when the recommender gives you faint praise and it's pretty obvious they dont know you or think you're that great.

I had a question about this too. I could get a LoR from a State Senator whose office I briefly worked with while I worked in the state legislature (mostly because I'm still very good friends with his top aide), however I'm worried if he were to be contacted by a school he wouldn't remember me by name right off the bat. If we were to bump into each other in public he would certainly remember me and talk to me, but on name alone I don't think he would.

Should I forgo a LoR from him and replace it with the lobbyist I interned with in undergrad? It's less impressive on paper but if she were contacted she would know me right off the bat and would have extremely positive things to say about me. Thanks for the advice.

[apollo2015]

To the original poster: The advice I got from most law school admissions staffers is that they mainly want an academic letter of recommendation, and they did not care if it was from a TA, a lecturer, or a Distinguished Professor.

I imagine that there are slight differences in terms of how a letter from a more prestigious level of professor is viewed, but those differences seem to be insubstantial compared to the difference between an academic letter and a workplace letter.

I had a question about this too. I could get a LoR from a State Senator whose office I briefly worked with while I worked in the state legislature (mostly because I'm still very good friends with his top aide), however I'm worried if he were to be contacted by a school he wouldn't remember me by name right off the bat. If we were to bump into each other in public he would certainly remember me and talk to me, but on name alone I don't think he would.

The advice I've always heard is that they do not like letters from Senators or Congressmen that you did not work closely with. That said, I am somewhat skeptical about that advice. If someone can get a Senator to give them a LoR that does not look like a form letter, I suspect it would have a bigger impact than admissions staffers want to admit.

[nsbane]

Admissions committees don't care about letters of recommendation. They can only hurt you when the recommender gives you faint praise and it's pretty obvious they dont know you or think you're that great.

I had a question about this too. I could get a LoR from a State Senator whose office I briefly worked with while I worked in the state legislature (mostly because I'm still very good friends with his top aide), however I'm worried if he were to be contacted by a school he wouldn't remember me by name right off the bat. If we were to bump into each other in public he would certainly remember me and talk to me, but on name alone I don't think he would.

Should I forgo a LoR from him and replace it with the lobbyist I interned with in undergrad? It's less impressive on paper but if she were contacted she would know me right off the bat and would have extremely positive things to say about me. Thanks for the advice.

i think my original post stands. no one cares about letters of rec, other than you are able to find 2-3 people with a pulse who say good things about you. no one will be impressed there is a politician who knows your name, unless perhaps their last names are obama, bush, or clinton. you just need to find the person who knows you well enough that they will write a good long letter talking about how great you are, and be detailed about it. if they are not detailed about how good you are, it will come across as a superficial letter from someone who doesnt know you. ESPECIALLY if it is from a politician, because kids all the time think that a rec from a politician is the secret to getting into harvard, and these politicians write dozens of them for people they barely know.