<p>Anyone here from IVY League? How important are recommendation letters in the grand scheme of things? I think you need 2 from teachers and one from counselor? Also what purpose does counselor reco serve as he or she would only write great things as they want you in.</p>
<p>"as he or she would only write great things as they want you in. " That’s what you think.</p>
<p>LORs are some of the few personalizing features of your file amongst tens of thousands of similar apps. They often are a key that gets one noticed.</p>
<p>I’ve been accepted to UCB, which is said to give Ivy League education in a public university setting, so I suppose I’m qualified enough to reply to this. In my opinion, the LORs aren’t as highly considered as GPA & SAT scores.
This is the way colleges look at your application, from what I have determined.</p>
<ol>
<li>GPA & grades/ test scores including SAT I/II or ACT</li>
<li>Extra-curricular involvement/ leadership roles in school and community</li>
<li>Essays- how eloquently can you represent your views/experiences? What is your personality beyond the statistics?</li>
<li>LORs</li>
</ol>
<p>Keep in mind that, despite an amazing application, you may not be granted admission if you weren’t one of the first in the applicant pile, your race is widely represented in the university, your income figures are high, or you’re an out-of-state applicant.
People who apply more than 2 weeks after an application is available, people who are of Asian/Indian ethnicity, people who are of a high-income family, and people who do not reside in the state of the specified university have lower chances of being admitted.</p>
<p>Hopefully you are not determined to ONLY attend an ivy-league university, because acceptance is definitely not as easy as it seems, even if you are in the top 10 of your class/ have extended achievements. I would know, lol.
Good luck!</p>
<p>why would be negative that you are an indian? they are underrepresented, so why is that a problem? you say an indian has no chance if applies after 2 weeks of application availability? that is strange as earlier applicants have higher chances as i read. also what does high income has to do with the admission?</p>
<p>Maybe I can clarify a bit?</p>
<p>People of Indian/Asian descent are indeed a minority population in the US. However, they are an over-represented minority in many colleges, meaning that there tend to be a larger amount of asians represented in the college’s population than what is reflected in the total US population. I believe Asians make up less than 5% of the total US population, but in many top schools like the Ivies they’ll make up 3 or 4 times that percentage of the student body. Thus, the competition is more rigorous for an ORM since colleges don’t want to admit too many more Asians as it is for the sake of diversity.</p>
<p>I’m not so sure about what kind of an advantage applying earlier before the deadline has. If the school you’re applying to has rolling admissions then yes it would be beneficial to submit an application as early as possible. Otherwise, I don’t think it should really make a difference?</p>
<p>And high income applicants are often expected to have higher overall stats or involvement in ECs than someone who is low income. This is because higher income applicants are generally more privileged and have an advantage over students that may have been financially disadvantaged. For instance, someone of higher income may have had the time to be involved in extravagant ECs or summer programs while the lower income student had to spend most of his time working at McDonalds. Or higher-income people may be able to pay for tutors or test prep that most others wouldn’t have access to. In general, high income individuals have more opportunities than low income applicants, and adcoms will usually recognize this.</p>
<p>swam: the 2nd poster gives some broad and incorrect advice. your first source should be the primary one: the individual college’s website. The bulk of US colleges don’t even require LORs, don’t consider ECs. It all depends on the type of school you’re targeting.</p>
<p>The anti-Asian bias is bandied about in meta discussions of highly selective colleges (and it’s very debatable). At most schools, ANYONE with top grades/scores will be admitted w/o a second’s hesitation to consider their race.</p>
<p>How the 2nd poster thinks wealthy are disadvantaged and quick applying people get preference is beyond me as well. Again, some very very selective schools search for excellence in lower economic applicants. But to say this discriminates against high income kids is preposterous (e.g. ~40% of kids at Harvard receive no FinAid = they come from households earning more than US$250K – go see how representative that demographic is).</p>
<p>That’s an inherent weakness in these fora – gotta wade through some bad with the good.</p>
<p>I’m not exactly sure if you were partly referring to me^</p>
<p>For the type of schools you seem to be targeting such as the ivy league, LORs will be fairly important. They won’t be as important as certain other aspects of your application such as GPA or test scores though. I honestly feel that unless the letter is really amazing or really mediocre, it shouldn’t have that significant an impact. And there is also the possibility that the teacher may just not be that good of a writer or as expressive as other teachers. It would be a little too unfair if adcoms put a serious amount of weight on such a subjective element of the application, although it is nonetheless still important at many top schools.</p>
<p>And there really is no question that affirmative action exists in boosting chances of URMs and lowering chances of ORMs atleast at the ‘top’ schools. Yes at most schools anyone in the top of their class should have no problems in being admitted, however you were asking about ivy league and simialr caliber schools. There is indeed a bias against asian applicants, while hispanic, american indian, or african american applicant can generally get in with slightly lower stats. These are all generalizations though ofc, as there are many aspects to an application other than ‘hooks’ like race/ethnicity.</p>
<p>As for the high-income thing, I definitely don’t think that there is a discrimination against high-income applicants and major leeway given to low-income students. However, I do feel as though there are occasional considerations given in reference to the amount of opportunities and privileges that a student has access to based on their financial situation. Nothing that will make a huge difference in an adcoms view of the applicant, however I do think it is sometimes a small consideration. I can’t imagine that adcoms wouldn’t recognize that many high-income applicants may have access to tutoring, test prep, summer programs, trips to africa, no need to hold a minimum wage job, etc. while low-income applicants may not have such luxuries. Like I said, there are many subjective elements to an application.</p>