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[notagunner]

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[Bambi]

No, as long as it is credible, as otherwise, it likely would be ignored in terms of impact.

Let us say a prof ranks you in the top 5% in various categories and he highly recommends you. Well, he has literally seen thousands of students and is able to discern with credibility whom he judges as suitable and why. He only loses cfredibility if on auto pilot, he recommends all students consistently in this fashion.

On the other hand, a supervisor in a summer job, may only have had a handful of students work for him in the past years, so his recommendation in terms of knowing what they are looking for would carry less weight.

So much depends upon whom your referee is exactly, what is his background, how many students has be judged over the years, does he have credibility objectively. Nothing is ever as simple as it seems.

Good luck!  

[notagunner]

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[rmorelan]

 mean someone has to be end up in all those high categories - the prof could easily not be wrong when ranking someone that way. 

I would try to avoid over thinking a strong reference like that