Letters of Recommendation by High School Counselors in Selective College Admissions: Differences by Race and Socioeconomic Status in Letter Length and Topics Discussed.

Letters of recommendation from school counselors are required to apply to most selective universities. We use cutting-edge natural language processing techniques to algorithmically analyze a national dataset of over 600,000 student applications and counselor recommendation letters submitted through the Common Application. We examine how the length and topical content of letters (e.g., sentences about Personal Qualities, Athletics, Intellectual Promise, etc.) relate to race/ethnicity, sex, and proxies for socioeconomic status. We explore whether differences in letter characteristics persist when accounting for additional student, school, and counselor characteristics; letters written by the same counselor; and for students with higher standardized test scores. We found noteworthy naïve differences in letter length and content across nearly all demographic groups, many reflecting known inequities (e.g., longer letters and more sentences on Personal Qualities for private school students). However, the ultimate implications of these patterns hinge on exactly Supplementary Information: The online version of this article contains supplementary material available 10.1007/s11162-025-09847-5.