Advice needed on choosing third recommender (statistics PhD)

[Naga]

Hello, and thank you for reading.

I'm a foreign student applying to U.S. stat Phd programs this fall, and currently in the process of requesting LORs.

So far I've secured two, one from my thesis advisor (time series econometrics) and another from a math professor.

For my third letter, I'm trying to decide from the following two:

1. Probability professor (discrete/continuous r.v's, pdf's , mgf's ... that stuff) which I took during my sophmore year (one class).

- I got an A, but hardly ever spoke with him.

- However, he might remember me because I was always the first to finish quizzes/exams and leave class. My scores were always near, if not, perfect.

- Not a native English speaker, got his Phd in Math at an asian institution

2. Environmental Development professor from two classes I took during my freshman and sophmore years.

- He knows me very well, and gave me an A for both classes.

- Both of his classes were graded based on a 20-page essay, written in English. Required extensive research, but did not involve any statistical analysis and has nothing to do with my research interest.

- Native English speaker, got his Phd in History/Literature from top UK institution

Given that I have plenty of Math courses with good grades and great TOEFL score, but poor GRE writing score (3.0, will retake), which do you think would be a better choice? (Assume neither has any international recoginition)

It seems the standard choice would be the Probability prof., but I think all he could talk about is my academic performance, which is pretty much apparent from my transcripts. On the other hand, I believe the latter one could say interesting things about me but he's from a totally unrelated field.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

Edited October 24, 2012 by Naga

[sisyphus1]

i would advise (2).

[cyberwulf]

Another vote for #2. Many adcoms, even in quantitative disciplines, are concerned about international applicants' abilities to write in English. A letter which explicitly highlights writing/communication as a strength could really help differentiate you from the pack; most adcoms get tired of wading through endless letters saying, essentially, "XXXXX got an A in my class, handing in all the assignments on time and performing well on the exam." These letters tell you nothing beyond what's on the transcript, and so don't really benefit your application.