Impact of Endorsement Letter from a Foreign Country's President

Parents Forum
1

Hi Parents,

I am a new member here. I have been reading this message board but never thought I would become a member and start such a thread. If this isn’t the right place my apologies. I just wanted to get Parents’ opinion on this matter.

Coming to you for help regarding my son’s college application. Yes we just started working with a college consultant but since our case is unique, I would like to get your perspective.

Our family is from Middle East but we are immigrants in USA for over 20 years. Our kids were born here in USA but we never lost touch with our home country.

My son is going to be a senior in 2023-2024 academic year.

During his high school, he participated in multiple charity projects in our home country and has made a name for himself for his active involvement. Last summer he was able to meet the head of the parliament of our country in Middle East and also met with the heads of both political parties.

He is also active in his high school. He is the head of 2 clubs and an active participant in the third one. His teachers know his dedication to his charity events and they will talk about this in their recommendation letters.

He took SAT twice and his SAT superscore is 1560. Individual SAT’s were 1490 (770 English, 720 Math) and 1510 (720 English, 790 Math)

His Unweighted GPA is 3.8/4.0. He is in top 20% of his class as far as we know.

He took 5 AP’s. Got 5 in four of them and got 4 in one of them.

There are 2 reach schools where he wants to study Politics and Economic. They are Yale and Upenn. Both reach schools. He still has plenty of Target and Safety Schools as well.

When he tried to collect supplemental material from this Middle East country for his college application, he was told President’s Office would like to endorse him for Yale and UPenn. This is something not usual according to our college consultant and she says she never had such a case.

I am coming to you for your opinion. First, will this really make a difference or not? Second, in what form shall this endorsement received by universities. I was told President himself willing to call Yale and UPenn presidents and discuss this matter.

I kindly ask your understanding for grammatical errors in my post if there are any and thanks in advance for your help.

1 Like
2

Does this head of state have some relationship to UPenn or Yale. Like is he or she a graduate?

3

Your son already has great stats to be a suitable candidate. Other than a Nobel prize, this sounds like something hard to beat, to make an application get noticed among the pool of similar excellent students.

If the parliamentary/presidential staff is willing to set up a phone call, then I’m sure they would certainly be willing to draft up a formal, personalized letter of recommendation in addition which can be submitted with the application so that it becomes part of his record as it is reviewed by various members of the admission team, and adds legitimacy.

Then, a supporting phone call, in the Spring, after the admission deadline has closed, would be the icing on the cake.
(In my opinion.)

5 Likes
4

Hi thumper1

No. President has done all his education in England.

5

I think this is one of those offers you should take. It’s certainly special. Am I certain it will get your student accepted at Yale or Penn? No. But it sure will make him stand out in the applicant pool.

6 Likes
6

I would take the offer, as well. I would think that the Dean of Admissions (or similar high level title in charge of admissions) is most likely the appropriate person for the president to contact. You may want to contact the office of the Dean or Director of Admissions at the school to explain the request from your home country and ask them who would be the appropriate person for the president to contact. It might be that the President of the school is the appropriate contact, so you could start with their office.

4 Likes
7

Don’t know if it will help but it can’t hurt.

The thing with the college confidential is - none of us, and I’ll include your hired counselor, can with certainty give you an answer. We are not the AOs at each school.

I’m sure there are even cases where an AO or team might look at an app one day and say yes and another and say no.

You don’t know about a school until you apply.

Yale accepted 4.6% of applicants (per last year CDS) and 97% come from the top 10% of their class. So top 20% may not work as there’s sure to be athletes and other special cases in that last 3%. There may also be high level private school kids.

Penn had an acceptance rate of 6.5% in CDS. Maybe for non Wharton it’s higher. But half (49% of enrolled) were early decision. So if you are not early decision it hurts. 93% were from the top 10% so it’s likely an easier call.

Also while Yale looks at the highest subscores, they do not create a higher composite score ( so the SAT there is still a very great 1510.

Here are their words - “ The Admissions Committee focuses its evaluation on the highest individual SAT subscores (Evidence-Based Reading and Writing + Math) and the highest ACT subscores (English, Reading, Math, Science) even if those subscores were achieved on different dates. The Committee does not create a new score total from those sub-scores, but will consider an applicant’s full testing history when available.”

Hopefully his rank is higher than you realize.

I can see a letter helping or not helping. It depends on what the letter states. Is it he helped our country and written from someone, no matter the title, that doesn’t know him. Not much there.

Or is it I know this young man - he accomplished this, this, and that - which would mean more. Even if not the head of parliament, the person who can convey this should be the writer.

Either way both are hard admits and unless he’s at a private, high performing hs, if not in the top 10% it would be near impossible but never 100% impossible. If in the top 10%, a little less than near impossible. It seems to me Penn ED if it’s his top choice and it’s affordable will be his best odds.

That you have targets and safeties is very important. And targets shouldn’t be, for example, top 15 LACs - they need to be realistic. He may get into one but I’d still consider them reaches.

Good luck to him.

1 Like
8

I agree that it’s impossible to know whether or how this will impact the student’s chances for admission. However, it’s definitely worth handling properly in case it might be helpful.

1 Like
10

This person already has an account and so I am closing this thread.