| Everything I'm going to say comes from either the actual forms you give to your teachers for letters of recommendation (they have excellent instructions that many teachers unfortunately are too arrogant to read over) and from the QuestBridge site. QuestBridge, in case you're unfamiliar with it, is an alternative application form for elite universities that I believe only lower-income students can use. I didn't use it because I found out about it too close to the deadline, before I had any real interest in these schools. It provides assistance into how to fill these applications, I suppose because low-income students don't tend to have the same resources for this in general.
Anyway, I saw three of my four letters of recommendation. One was a very typical, standard recommendation for an elite university--the kind of letter that is fine to have, but won't get you in itself. It just spoke about how I am consistently doing well in the class, that the other students look up to me and see me as a leader, etc: from what I've read about the college admissions process, they don't care about that. Every source has emphasized that they want to know specific examples of what makes you special. My teacher mentioned I'm often one of the lab leaders: that's not really anything too special. I mean, it's definitely good he didn't say something bad about me, but this letter of recommendation is similar to what a vast majority of students at this sort of university have. It doesn't set me apart.
Now, my band teacher wrote one of my optional letters, because I've taken 7 courses with him and have seen him for hundreds of hours outside the classroom. He mentioned specific examples of how I take initiative to learn and how I lead students in the ensembles. He mentioned how when I took a music theory course with him, I used the basics of what he taught us to teach myself piano with no other background whatsoever in the instrument, showing my resourcefulness, my musical ability, my drive, and my initiative. It's very specific things about what you've done that the university wants to see.
My guidance counselor was similar in that it spoke of specific special qualities about me as a person, not just the typical "one of the best." She was more into my personality traits and my role as a student in the school as a whole. I do not have any idea what my other letter said, but I've read letters he's written for other students and, for example, he described one other student's performance in a play and how in his 30 years of teaching she played the role better than most. The teacher just needs to know you and your individual strengths and achievements, and find a specific encounter that most properly highlights that.
I can't speak for the boxes that teachers checked off because I come from a lower-performing school (we're rated D in the state of Florida, which itself doesn't exceed too highly), so it might not reflect a school where most of the student body is competitive. | 
College Confidential is dedicated to providing the best free college admissions information available on the Web, through our many articles and this discussion forum. For those of you who wish more personal advising, College Confidential offers private counseling services, conducted via e-mail, with services starting at $89. Counseling is conducted by our Director of Counseling Dave Berry, co-author of America's Elite Colleges and/or with Sally Rubenstone, co-author of Panicked Parents Guide to College Admission, and our other outstanding associates. See College Counseling for more information.
