Rec Letter from PI

[djfermion]

Ok so I am not applying any time soon, so this isn't really an urgent question, but I'm not really sure who I would ask for a letter of recommendation when the time comes. I am working for a physics professor at the moment, but he is very busy and has multiple projects that keep him busy. Therefore, on a daily basis I work very closely with a post-doc and maybe talk with the actual professor 3-5 hours a week. Obviously the post doc knows me much better than the professor, so is it acceptable to get a recommendation from him or do schools prefer that it is from the actual professor?

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[ButImLETired]

Ok so I am not applying any time soon, so this isn't really an urgent question, but I'm not really sure who I would ask for a letter of recommendation when the time comes. I am working for a physics professor at the moment, but he is very busy and has multiple projects that keep him busy. Therefore, on a daily basis I work very closely with a post-doc and maybe talk with the actual professor 3-5 hours a week. Obviously the post doc knows me much better than the professor, so is it acceptable to get a recommendation from him or do schools prefer that it is from the actual professor?

A lot of schools actually request your LOR writers to be Professors and theoretically won't accept any T.A.'s or whatever (I say theoretically because you can usually email them and argue your way). I would suggest that you either try to get around it by emailing those schools that clearly state they'll only take letters from Professors when you're about to apply, OR you can ask the PI but try and get the post-doc to write it and have the PI sign it.
Sounds sketchy, I know, but the post-doc will understand and the PI will appreciate not having to deal with writing a letter. One of the doctors I worked with made me write almost the whole letter and he just added his impressions at the end of it (about a couple of sentences). The PI I work with now had my supervisor write me a letter, then he read it and re-worded it a bit. So it's fairly common, however unethical or whatever it may seem.
As a rule, though, a good LOR is great, but no LOR is better than a bad one, so if you have to choose between not having one from that particular lab at all and having one that clearly sounds like the guy barely knows you, then don't include it.