How important are recommendation letters?

SAT128
Sun, 21 Apr 2013 21:08:01 +0000

Maybe I can clarify a bit?

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.

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?

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.