Specific comments on your performance in school or at work are also helpful. Another consideration is the reputation of your references. If you can get a favorable reputation from a professor who is well respected in your field, that will certainly strengthen your application. This can be a tradeoff situation,and it can be hard to know which is more beneficial. Specific comments about your work from someone who knows it very well can easily be more helpful to you than a vague positive comment from a more famous person.
Many professors are happy to write recommendations for their students.
If recommendations are part of your file, you are entitled to see them along with the rest of the information in your file, if you are admitted and enroll as a student at that school. It is common practice for a recommendation form or instructions to ask the applicant to sign a voluntary waiver of review rights, which means that you are giving up your rights to see the recommendations written on your behalf. The key word here is voluntary . If you feel strongly about it, you may refuse to give such a waiver. If you have chosen your references carefully so that you know they are going to give you a good recommendation, there is little need to see the recommendation once you are admitted.