LoR from the head of my department?

[yourruth]

I am a social work major pursuing master's degree and applying for a grad program in Computational Social Science.

I have 3-4 people in my mind that I can ask for LoR.

First, an IT department professor I have been working for as a RA with a Community Informatics project for 10 months. 

Second, a lecturer, not a professor but a doctor though, whose class I had last year and got A+ from. She recently suggested me to do research together and I will be paid. She knows me quite well. She can write in detail about my intellectuality and personality.

Third, I have two options. (Btw, I have implemented a mentoring program to improve the experiences of the students in this department. And there are two people who can talk about this in a LoR.)

1) The head of department. She knows me and my project. She is happy about it. I also took her course last year and got A+ as well. But I am not sure how much she knows about me.. We barely had personal contact. I know she knows my name and face though.

2) My supervisor who have seen me and supported me through the mentoring program. We are quite close. She would be able to give details about my mentoring program and my personality.

 

I don't know if I choose the head of the department or my supervisor. Though my supervisor may be able to give some details about me, I think the second person also can do that. I am not sure how much a LoR from a head of a department counts in the admission process. Which one should I choose??

 

 

 

[rising_star]

You need to be thinking more specifically than just "may be able to give some details about me". What kinds of details can this person provide? Will they be able to talk confidently and strongly about your ability to succeed in graduate school? I ask because that's what you're really looking for in a recommender. Based on what you've said, the letter from the head of the department will be a fairly generic one, which won't necessarily boost your application.