Do references cause us to aim to high?

[gbea]

Another point that I have thought of is that if a professor has sat on adcoms at the school you attended, and the school is not top 15, he or she is not used to seeing multiple blemish free applications.

At schools outside the top 20 adcoms have to look at the good points and weigh them against the bad points, this is very different than simply throwing out everyone with anything questionable.

Part of a professors recommendation of a school might come from "I would admit you" which is possibly based on admission decisions he or she has made.

[untitled]

Thanks guys.

@Gecko: When I go from grad student to letter writer, I plan on being as unfair as possible. That is, if I know someone at a school to which I am writing, I will let that know exactly what I think of the student. I think that many young writers do this, and I think it is good for both the writer and the school to which the student applies.

@Ludwig: I think that is what I mean. What is worse, many schools give us their average GRE scores of admitted econ students, or similar statistics, so I am sure that there are many students with less than a 790 who are admitted to top 20 schools, but I don't have any information from them (do they have stellar GPAs? Are their letters impeccable?). As for particular cases, many people think that research and strong letters and recognizably of your school/letter writers are very important; so I don't see any reason why students with low scores shouldn't be aggressive when choosing schools to which to apply.

@helloworld09: I don't want to make the admissions committees jobs too easy for them by narrowing the range of profiles applying to schools. I have heard that certain admissions committees never accept GRE/GPA scores that are too low, as they've had bad experiences with such students, but the thresholds mentioned are always closer to 750 than 780, and I do think it is a good idea to apply to as many reaches/good fits as you can afford.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback.