Can a mentor write you a college recommendation letter?

RReaders in Stanford's admissions office sometimes looked beyond an applicant's teachers and counselor to other adults who knew the student, and many families never realize the application makes room for those adults. Many students work closely with someone outside school through a nonprofit: a college access program, a mentoring organization, a club that meets after school. These mentors often know a student's ambitions and circumstances better than any teacher.

Families tend to assume there is no place for them in the application, so the mentor goes unmentioned and the reader never hears what that adult has seen. There usually is a place, and using it well takes a little more than filling in a name.