<p>I agree. The recommendations were terrific. However, I think they also highlight the problem with applying to elite colleges from schools that send a lot of kids to elite schools.</p>
<p>As much as the teachers wanted these recs to be special, the language is that of teachers who have recommended a lot of kids. Lots of boilerplate. Refering to him as “young man”, etc.</p>
<p>On the other extreme, is a school like my daughter’s that doesn’t send a lot of kids to fancy-pants colleges – maybe a handful every other year. To the school, it’s a big deal. The kids applying are their “babies” and I think that probably shows in the recommendations. For example, my daughter’s principal insisted on writing one of her recommendations for a merit scholars program. </p>
<p>Daughter ended up with a third teacher rec because the poor guy wrote it on his own, totally unsolicited, and handed it to the GC. It was really kind of awkward because daughter had already asked two other teachers to write her recommendations. After much discussion, I think the GC ended up enclosing it with a Post-It saying, “Sorry for the extra. He wrote it without being asked and was so excited, I couldn’t tell him no…”</p>
<p>I think it also helped that we never had any expectation whatsoever of the guidance counselors actually giving useful guidance to my daughter – either for the list or the application. Knowing that it was on the family’s shoulders, we made sure to do the requisite homework. At a more hoity-toit high school, there might be false sense of security about the guidance office. No false sense here. My daughter is pretty much positive that her GC had never heard of Swarthmore (her teachers had).</p>
<p>When I talked to the GC after D had decided to add Dickinson as an early-notification stone-cold safety, the GC told me that she didn’t know anything about Davidson, but she had looked it up and wasn’t sure that it was really a safety! No kidding… She had confused the two schools.</p>