letters of recommendations

[bbq555]

Do admissions committees typically give more credibility towards letters written by proffesors or is the occupation of the person writing the letter not that significant?(excluding family,friends,coaches of course) I currently have letters of recommendations from a faculty member who is in charge of student organization affairs and also one from a police officer that I interned under. Although, I have a high GPA, I do not know most of my proffesors well enough for them to write me a well written letter of recommendation. Are the people I have gotten letters from so far going to be over looked because they're not proffesors? and should I go befriend a proffesor for my third letter of recommendation?

[jasper.milvain]

Letters from professors are absolutely more useful, unless you're applying for a professional degree in a field in which you have relevant work experience. Even in that case, I'd probably use the police officer as a supplementary reference in addition to letters from professors. You may be surprised by how well you're remembered by profs.

[Stories]

If you're doing an academic degree, it is absolutely impairitve that you have letters of rec from fellow professors. If you're applying for professional programs it's good to have maybe one letter from a non-academic, but it's still very important to have professors critique your ability to do graduate level work.