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"Uniformly excellent" == average
There will be recommendations that will stand out because they will display the candidate's intellectual passion (as opposed to mugging and doing well because society told them to).
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and how do you suppose teachers would know the difference? how would teachers know if "society" didn't whisper to them outside the classroom, in the middle of the night, to mug hard enough to stay ahead in the rat race? short of a polygraph test or a mind-reader, any screening process you ask for would depend on measuring ostensible and coachable attributes.
and are you actually serious about trying to find "intellectual passion" in a 12 year-old?
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Such actions would destroy the "voice" of those essays ... just as parent intervention also tends to backfire in college essays.
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an extremely outstanding essay would backfire, but an extremely outstanding teacher recommendation wouldn't? how do you control for the teacher's favoritism if that personal bias has nothing to do with the student's aptitude? anyway, the child you're looking for - someone with "intellectual passion" and a maturity beyond his years - would probably write an essay that backfires.
don't talk in ambiguous terms like "destroying the voice of the essay" - in the first place, when is a "voice" valid, genuine or acceptable, and when is it not? a consistent and clear "voice" could easily be achieved by a parent who writes the entire essay. successful examples of essays with a "genuine voice" could be emulated. they will definitely happen in Singapore.
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Ah, but what is qualified? The very idea of "gifted" is about aptitude and talent, not just current performance or mere grades. Current performance is the y, not the y'; I should believe that the student whose mugging-based performance has been egged on by society, as opposed to a student who takes charge of his/her learning, is not qualified.
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seriously, what do you have against mugging and coaching? results are results, whatever the motives behind the accomplishment. why should the accomplishments of good students be diminished even if they were mostly pressured to do so? if you have shown yourself to be just as capable as some other naturally-gifted kid, why would you deserve the rewards less than him?
everybody has been coached throughout childhood, one way or another. as long as you've stepped into school, read textbooks and novels on your own, you HAVE been coached, knowingly or not, by some segment of society. while no examination is perfect or "uncoachable", it is ridiculous to suppose that there's an alternative process available today that is.