<p>The parent letter also favors kids with parents who attended similar schools. My DS may be applying to the small New England LAC both DH and I attended. It would be very easy for us to write a profile of DS that emphasized the traits we know would be more likely to result in admission to that or a similar school. My friend whose son is also eyeing this LAC attended a huge, excellent midwestern university. She’d have a much harder time writing the letter.</p>
<p>GCs at private schools are more likely to write better, more tailored letters to colleges than overworked GCs at large public schools but I wonder if this advantage might extend to the parents of kids at private schools as well because they had to write these “Tell us about your child” letters for prep school applications, and if their child attended a pre-prep feeder school they may even have had feedback or coaching from their child’s school. I could also see parent letter help becoming a part of the standard college consulting package, again favoring the privileged.</p>