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Letter of Rec from student?

Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 6:20 pm
by ALgooner
So I know this sounds dumb, but hear me out please! I am part of a student run microfinance nonprofit. The CEO is a student, and I am thinking about asking him to write me a letter of rec. I volunteer for this nonprofit around 10 hours a week, so it is a pretty significant investment of my time, and I wanted to reflect that in my application. It is listed in my resume and talked about in my PS, so I thought it might be good to continue the theme and have a letter of rec from my "boss" there.

Anyone have any advice on this?

Re: Letter of Rec from student?

Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 7:00 pm
by mmbt123
personally i vote no. if you address it in your ps and resume, it should be sufficient and 10 hrs a week won't seem like such an investment when you're compared against students who work 24 hrs+.

also from what ive read, rec letters are used to evaluate your academic credentials so i don't knwo how this would help in that respect.

Re: Letter of Rec from student?

Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 7:01 pm
by The Duck
ALgooner wrote:So I know this sounds dumb, but hear me out please! I am part of a student run microfinance nonprofit. The CEO is a student, and I am thinking about asking him to write me a letter of rec. I volunteer for this nonprofit around 10 hours a week, so it is a pretty significant investment of my time, and I wanted to reflect that in my application. It is listed in my resume and talked about in my PS, so I thought it might be good to continue the theme and have a letter of rec from my "boss" there.

Anyone have any advice on this?
You don't have an academic advisor or anything?

Re: Letter of Rec from student?

Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 7:32 pm
by ALgooner
mmbt123 wrote:personally i vote no. if you address it in your ps and resume, it should be sufficient and 10 hrs a week won't seem like such an investment when you're compared against students who work 24 hrs+.

also from what ive read, rec letters are used to evaluate your academic credentials so i don't knwo how this would help in that respect.
Thanks. I was more of thinking I could use it to corroborate what I claim in my resume and personal statement. And yea, I work around 20 hours a week, in addition to volunteering and taking a full load of classes. That's why I thought it was a pretty substantial amount of volunteer time.

Re: Letter of Rec from student?

Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2012 7:34 pm
by ALgooner
The Duck wrote:
ALgooner wrote:So I know this sounds dumb, but hear me out please! I am part of a student run microfinance nonprofit. The CEO is a student, and I am thinking about asking him to write me a letter of rec. I volunteer for this nonprofit around 10 hours a week, so it is a pretty significant investment of my time, and I wanted to reflect that in my application. It is listed in my resume and talked about in my PS, so I thought it might be good to continue the theme and have a letter of rec from my "boss" there.

Anyone have any advice on this?
You don't have an academic advisor or anything?
We have a faculty sponsor, but I've never actually met him... so I'm not sure how valuable of a letter that would be.

Also, keep in mind that I already have 3 letters from a combo of professors/employers.