RJB

There are overseas universities that do not require LORs. But that does not mean they are profit oriented, low educational quality diploma mills. There is something people are forgetting here. Are you a good or excellent US graduate school applicant just because some professor's LOR says so? I realize that nearly all graduate admissions offices in the US require strong LORs before even a talented applicant will be considered for admission. However in my opinion I think this rigid US graduate admissions policy is lowering the country's level of intellectual capital. According to online articles I read on this matter at About.com and elsewhere, more and more US grad school applicants, including those in psychology and medicine, are bemoaning the difficulties they have in getting strong LORs no matter how hard they work at it. Instead of getting really helpful feedback on this, they are told repeatedly the same things: Make sure your professors know who you are, be sure you stand out academically, take non-matriculated courses if you have to, etc. This advice continues to ignore the reality. 1. There are US professors who are annoyed that some students who were not their personally selected favorites would be so bold as to ask them for an LOR, when surely these professors must know that the student must request it because it is mandatory. These professors frequently tell the student to ask someone else. There are documented cases of this. 2. Handicapped US students and female students have reported (not all, some) that professors from which they asked LORs were very reluctant to help. 3. Even when an LOR is a fairly good one, there might be "coded language" in it that a US graduate admissions officer could take the wrong way. 4. There are US postdocs and US associate professors also who have complained they have considerable trouble getting strong reference letters and LORs. This is not always because they do not qualify. I think this is why at least some graduate US admissions programs have eased the LOR requirements, allowing applicants to ask employers, or someone who can vouch for their good character, rather than asking professors in academia, whose responses certainly can be subjective and biased, due to human fallibility. When does politics and bias in academia end, and objectivity begin? Today Brazil, India, Iran and Communist China are outpacing the US in terms of talented graduate school admissions applicants in business, IT/computer science, math and the physical/life sciences. I find it absolutely astounding that US graduate admissions offices still weigh the value of LORs far more than overall good grades/GPA, research, volunteerism and experience. I am not saying LORs all should be scrapped. All I am suggesting is the whole graduate admissions package should be weighed together as a whole, not one component weighted more or less strongly than the other parts. There are students the professors like, and other students they might have had personality conflicts with. The same is true for some talented postdocs in the US having trouble getting good references. LORs do not tell the whole story. A. Einstein never could get LORs from his professors, meaning for him to get a professorship position in physics after his graduation. In fact some professors even did not like Einstein. He turned in work at the last minute and frequently he cut classes. That is why he found work as a patent clerk in Switzerland. S. Ramanujan never did get LORs from any math professors for his higher studies in number theory. That was one of the biggest tragedies in mathematics. Those are just two examples of what superficial or biased evaluations of a student can lead to. I am sure there are more.