This is an excellent question--that should be answered by data. Is there a thresholding effect? It could be that say there's not much difference in a hundred

This is an excellent question--that should be answered by data. Is there a thresholding effect? It could be that say there's not much difference in a hundred points in the SAT. But, maybe GPAs actually are more predictive. I assume that rec letters are useless to first approximation unless the recommender writes something about the student that raises flags.