Hunter Biden, son of Joe Biden, seems to have never stopped causing trouble for his father. During the campaign, he was constantly exposed with negative news, truly a master of "dad-trapping."
Recently, Fox News dug up a gray-area story from a few years ago.
It turns out Biden wrote an Ivy League application recommendation letter for a Chinese student in 2017!
Who exactly could get Biden to write a recommendation?
Getting the U.S. President to write a recommendation letter – what kind of big shot must you be.
This Chinese student is indeed the son of a big shot. The big shot is a board director and chairman of the investment committee at a domestic private equity firm. Hunter Biden also served as a director at that firm, holding a 10% stake.
However, in November 2021, Hunter Biden told The New York Times that the stake had been sold off.
And the Chinese student who obtained President Biden's recommendation letter is the son of this PE firm's director.
Simply put, Hunter Biden's Chinese business partner's son was applying to American universities and thought a celebrity recommendation would help. Fine, then the useful tool, dad Sleepy Joe, could write one.
According to emails revealed by Fox News, on January 3, 2017, this big shot sent an email to the firm's vice chairman, with copies to Hunter Biden and another vice chairman.
The gist was: my son xxx is applying to college, mainly interested in Brown, Cornell, and NYU, please give some application advice. Then he attached his son's resume.
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The vice chairman promptly responded warmly: "Got it, let's see what we can do for your son."
A few weeks later, on February 18, 2017, Eric, the president of Hunter Biden's company, wrote in an email: "Dear Mr. X, Hunter Biden asked me to send you a recommendation letter. It's from his father, President Biden, for your son. The original has been mailed to Brown University's president, Dr. Paxson."
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My, the efficiency and understanding—who wouldn't call this impeccable? Just asking for application advice, and immediately a Biden presidential recommendation gets sent to the Ivy League president.
The big shot expressed approval: "Thank you so much! And thanks to Hunter Biden."
The above emails all came from Hunter Biden's laptop.
President Biden says he was entirely unaware of his son's business activities. The White House declines to comment.
Right, just say you're not familiar. Ask again and it's Fake News.
It remains unclear whether this student with a U.S. presidential recommendation was admitted to Brown or the other two universities, or if he enrolled.
A Brown University spokesperson said that due to privacy, admissions would not release applicant information to the media.
The Washington Post also revealed evidence that Biden wrote a recommendation for the big shot's daughter for Georgetown University.
It seems neither his son nor daughter ended up admitted—otherwise the media would have already dug it up by now...
Is a celebrity recommendation a must for Ivy League applications?
What, has college applications now reached a point where you need the U.S. president to write a recommendation? Is it really this competitive?
Ivy League undergraduate acceptance rates hit new lows this year
Looking at this year's undergraduate admissions data, the competition at various schools, especially the Ivies, is indeed cutthroat.
Harvard's Class of 2022 acceptance rate hit a record low of 3.19%, breaking last year's low of 3.42%.
Brown's overall acceptance rate also slipped to a new low of 5.03%:
Princeton, Penn, and Cornell chose not to release detailed admissions statistics for now. But looking at the other five Ivies, aside from Dartmouth and Columbia, Harvard, Yale, and Brown all saw further declines in acceptance rates this year.
Every year is declared the "toughest admissions season ever" for U.S. undergraduate applications, and the next year proves even tougher.
Amid frenzied competition, does the recommendation letter become a lifesaver?
Admitted students to top American universities almost uniformly boast high GPAs and SAT/TOEFL scores, along with various talents and awards. Undergraduate applications to elite schools are already a battlefield, and the Ivy League is even more so.
Thus almost every student tries to embellish their profile to boost their application. It's not hard to understand why the Chinese student mentioned above had his dad pull strings to get a recommendation from Biden.
But did Biden's recommendation actually help? That's hard to say.
J. Lin, an admissions officer at Northwestern University, said they once received a recommendation letter from Biden. It sounded impressive, but it didn't help the application. The letter was hollow in content, lacking interaction, and couldn't give admissions a deeper understanding of the student—essentially an ineffective celebrity endorsement.
That applicant probably just wanted to use Biden's name to showcase personal or family connections for a boost.
But it backfired. Having someone who doesn't know you write a recommendation fails to reflect your actual strengths, and instead gives admissions a poor impression of grandstanding.
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Therefore, you must choose a suitable recommender who knows you well, rather than blindly chasing celebrity effect.
How to effectively prepare recommendation letters?
Most schools require 2-3 recommendation letters, so their importance is self-evident. A good recommendation can present a more dimensional and comprehensive picture of your strengths, enhancing your application.
So, how can you effectively prepare recommendation letters? We offer the following advice:
1. Find the right recommenders
Recommenders are best those who appreciate and know you, such as your course instructors, academic advisors, direct internship supervisors, etc. They are familiar with your academic ability and talents, with first-hand material and experiences to share, so they can truly showcase your strengths in the letter.
Some students seek out celebrities as recommenders, but if that person isn't familiar with you, has no interaction, or is even unrelated to your field, such a letter won't help much and can easily become superficial.
If a teacher is a big name in the field and also happens to be your instructor who knows you well, that's an ideal recommender. You can actively communicate with them about the recommendation.
2. Communicate fully with recommenders to enhance the letter's value
Recommenders usually need ample time to conceptualize and prepare your letter. By reviewing your past performance, they unearth personal highlights and then craft the narrative.
We suggest you communicate often with recommenders early on, sharing your resume, transcripts, application program list, or personal statement, so they understand you better and have sufficient time to prepare.
This also helps avoid hollow content and creates a cohesive thread among your application materials.
3. Plan the recommendation timeline thoroughly
For graduate applicants, you can start planning as early as sophomore or junior year, and based on your tentative application direction, identify potential recommender candidates.
Once you've confirmed target individuals, be proactive in class and beyond to leave a strong impression on professors. This will make it much more natural to ask them for a letter later.
After confirming your recommenders, be sure to clarify exactly when the letter is needed to avoid missing application deadlines.
Submission deadlines generally fall between November and February, so you should aim to have professors complete their letters by November.
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