My country does not have LOR nor it is needed anywhere. I want to study in US in colleges like Duke, UCB is it possible?

Answered

Hi @Priyanshu15,

Short answer- Yes. You need to submit a letter of recommendation

More detailed answer -

Thanks for your question. In the US, most of the Top Colleges have adopted either using the Common App or the Coalition App portal. Together, there are over 1000 member colleges. There are still some that haven't jumped on the train like Georgetown and the University of California consortium.

In order for these college applications portals to work, all member colleges and approx. 1.5 Million (1.2 common app vs 350,000 coalition app) students have to adhere to the same rules and policies.

Therefore, with the exception of supplemental essays and short questions, colleges can't change the input data sections year to year and neither can the applicants who use the portal.

The standard recommendation list is (2) unique teacher recommendations and (1) high school counselor recommendation. If your high school did not have a college counselor in your country that is familiar with this, then someone in the school's administration office can be substituted. This can either be a Head of School or Principal or someone familiar with you and your academic file. They will have 3 responsibilities. 1.) Write your recommendation, 2.) Submit your official transcript which is a report of all the courses you took at the high school and the corresponding grades. 3.) A school profile which explains how your school used grades, the grading scale, how many honors, APs, IBs your school offered, demographics of your school, graduation requirements, a list of clubs and extracurriculars that were available and any other pertinent information. This is necessary because if no one from your school applied to the list of the colleges you intend to apply to, the admissions officers have some context to evaluate your file. Sometimes certain Universities or certain Colleges within a university has specific policies of who should be your teacher recommenders. Therefore, I would rely on researching that with the college you are applying. Typically if you are applying to a STEM major, many colleges want at least 1 recommender to be a Science or Math teachers. But they will delineate that information on their admissions requirements section of their website.

If you do not have recommendations you college application will be deemed incomplete and will not be evaluated for consideration anywhere.

As an international student, competing against other international students is very competitive. You may not be aware of this but there are many high achieving East Indian nationals that attend private day schools and boarding schools that are currently taking both APs and IBs and other advanced coursework. In addition, some of them have hired college consultants who are very familiar with the entire US college applications process from curating essays to getting high marks on standardized testing like the SAT and ACT. Since getting into a college in the US is a very complicated process which I called a bi-lateral holistic process, it is not a meritocratic process as it might be in China or India. So your success or failure to get admitted into an American college depends on many factors, not just test scores.

It's best that you check off all the application requirements boxes and not leave anything missing or blank. Also, please speak to as many current or former Indian college students that applied to US colleges so you can so you can get a better inside information on how this all works.

Good luck,

Each school should have information available and admissions counselors available for international students. They would be where I start with questions about admissions for international students. Duke has a large international draw so I’m sure they would have several resources. You might start here for some general information. https://visaservices.duke.edu/process/student

You can ask your teachers for a letter of recommendation (best to ask a science teacher and social science/English teacher) and tell them you need it for applying to American colleges. I'm sure they will understand if you explain. One tip: give them a resume with a brag sheet listing your accomplishments outside the classroom that they do not know of and that you want to be highlighted in your LOR.

Best of luck applying!