<p>"Hanna–How about all the applicants who get thorough, knowledgeable recommendations from their guidance counselors vs. those whose counselors can’t pick them out in a line-up? This disparity affects a big percentage of high school students … far more than the parent-letter issue will ever touch. "</p>
<p>Not Hanna, but my response to this is – yeah, duh, GC recommendations are a bunch of nonsense too for the same reasons you identified – lots of kids have GCs who couldn’t pick them out of a lineup. So why make the problem worse by adding the disparity of highly literate, educated, insightful parents vs non English speaking, less literate parents? At least teacher recs can lay claim to some semblance of objectivity across candidates. </p>
<p>Yes, absolutely, less literate parents can offer insightful observations. What if a parent just isn’t insightful? Why should that hurt the kid?</p>
<p>Yes. And what if the parent and the child have a rocky relationship? What if the parent isn’t that enthusiastic about the child attending that particular school?</p>
<p>The college application process is the first time that young people have a chance to achieve something on their own, without too much meddling from their parents. Up to this point, the parents have always had a lot of input into just about every aspect of their lives. Isn’t this the perfect time to let the products of all of our efforts shine on their own, without us in the background selling our kids to the “judges?”</p>
<p>I realize this is the Parent forum and I’m just a freshman applicant, but this thread caught my attention. I have to say that from where I’m standing, I find that the parent letter of recommendation is a bad idea.</p>
<p>I’m the youngest of two girls, with my sister being almost 30, so our parents’ attitude has changed throughout time, but what hasn’t changed is their apparent dislike for their children. I’m not saying we’re mistreated or literally hated, but we don’t have a close relationship either. In post #16, the poster made pretty much the same comments. Our parents never commended us on our achievements, but not because of cultural reasons. They just didn’t see the point of encouraging your child. The tactic they use is fear. I can remember reading Mobey Dick in 1st grade in fear that if I wouldn’t, I’d get punished, not because I liked literature. </p>
<p>I don’t think that if they were supposed to write a recommendation for me, or my sister, they would have done a good job. Another tactic they like to use is comparison. Though my sister got the same “fear” treatment and was never applauded for her exceptional achievements, she is always brought up as a “guidline” I should be following. What I imagine they’d write in their letter would be “She is not like her sister, who is committed, enthusiastic and so on”, although I find that to be untrue. </p>
<p>I’m just glad none of the colleges I’ve applied to asked my parents for a letter. Maybe the reason is that I’m an international student from a non-English speaking country.</p>
<p>Not that the adcoms would use these letters as a testimonial to the student’s intelligence, since they have test results, GPA, and teacher recs to look at, but some parents have no frame of reference for what consitutes a smart, hard-working student. For example, we all know folks who think their children are super hard-working, top students because they made National Honor Society and always do all their homework before watching TV. In the world of other parents, a top student is one who is an Intel finalist, won an international math or science competition, and is taking all college classes in high school. We all know parents who are certain their little Johnny or Susie was born for MIT, while others with way more accomplished kids know their kids couldn’t cut it there. Both types of parents might be honest, but one is more truthful.</p>
<p>You know, with all due respect, Sally, I read your response and I am really floored. Everyone in the system KNOWS that GC recs are one big fat joke – there are the GC’s at private schools who have met with the kid / family for years on end and can offer valuable insight into the kid, versus the GC’s at most public high schools who are writing boilerplate fill-in-the-blank “John/Mary/Sally is a bright hard-working kid with a talent for math/science/English who would be an asset to ___ University” because they wouldn’t know John, Mary or Sally if they tripped over them because they are counseling 500 students and focusing on making sure kids with real problems get help. </p>
<p>We HOPE that adcoms are smart enough to discern this (which I believe they are), and weight the GC letters very little in the process, except insofar as they are “on the extremes” (John’s straight A’s are because he cheats, or Mary’s mother died midway through Mary’s junior year). </p>
<p>Given that, I just cannot see how you could possibly advocate for a system that, in essence, does the same thing – gives extra brownie points to the kids of highly-literate, educated, insightful, savvy parents and doesn’t give those brownie points to the kids of less-literate, non-English-speaking, less savvy parents. There are enough points within the system that already do that – access to extracurriculars, certain sports, good schools with a wide variety of advanced offerings, etc. Why add more?</p>
<p>I knew a brilliant kid at my alma mater (who went very far) who was the son of a janitor who, quite honestly and with no disrespect intended to the man, was of below-average intelligence. He was undoubtedly a good, hardworking man who did the best he could – but his son dreamed dreams and thought things that were simply well beyond his ken. This man would not have been able to write anything beyond “my son is a good kid and a hard worker and I love him very much.” There just wasn’t any insight to be had. The ability to be self-actualized enough to have the time to reflect on and have insight into someone else’s character is, in itself, a sign of privilege.</p>
<p>University of Rochester’s additional rec letter did not have to be a parent but any friend or family member. We asked a friend who my son had worked for so it gave a view of my son’s work ethic and interaction with adults.</p>
<p>I think instead of a parent recommendation the most helpful thing is to help your student express their own strengths in the various essays and questions they need to answer. It is very hard to toot your own horn so I spent time talking to my son about what I thought his strengths were to help him better express them on paper to schools.</p>
<p>PG, I totally agree. The current admission system to selective colleges is fundamentally unfair and heavily biased in favor of privileged kids. The US, the land of equal opportunity has become a land of entrenched privileges where the wealthy maintain their advantage by erecting barriers, seemingly innocuous but cumulatively disastrous for the less fortunate. In the UK, even the royals can’t ensure their progeny will get admitted to top colleges. Oxford and Cambridge have long ago abandoned legacy admission, a truly shameful admission practice not worthy of any democracy. In my neck of the woods, it would seem like Lacrosse has been specifically created as a sport to allow rich kids with marginal academics to be recruited by top colleges and LACs. </p>
<p>As far as Smith’s practice of asking for a parent letter, I am less sanguine. Under the school’s heavy AA focus, I could easily see how a poorly written letter by an immigrant or poor single parent may actually help the applicant!</p>
<p>I can understand the possible benefits to a parent recommendation, but the idea behind it is seriously flawed. In less than a year, these kids will be practically on their own. The parents shouldn’t be this involved with the admissions process. Also, consider kids who don’t have a good relationship with their parents. It happens quite often. I could imagine a parent purposely writing a “bad” recommendation if they did not approve of one of the schools their child applied to.</p>
<p>Not only will that not go far…the father…as well meaning as he may be…may not realize that describing someone as “a hard worker” is often taken by those in academia as “damning with faint praise” and a sign the applicant is a dull grind lacking the above-average/superstar intellect they feel are better “fits” for their schools/programs. </p>
<p>It’s something several Profs and even past supervisors warned me to be wary of if Profs/supervisors use that phrase to describe me in feedback and performance reviews. </p>
<p>In short…being described as “a hard worker” is short-hand for…great work-ethic…but a possible dullard. In the academic milieu I’ve experienced at my magnet high school…that description would be regarded as the equivalent of saying a C or B student should be awarded a large shiny cookie/award for his/her rather lackluster achievements or for fulfilling minimal acceptable expectations respectively.</p>
<p>"Everyone in the system KNOWS that GC recs are one big fat joke "</p>
<p>I’m not sure what the system is ( disadvantage for my kid), but I didn’t know (another disadvantage?). But if the system knows GCs are a joke, surely they know parents are a joke too. Surely those who don’t get asked to write, or don’t want to don’t have to, but if my fellow parents don’t want colleges to ask, how does it help to debate it here? Or maybe folks are telling parents who have been asked they shouldn’t respond? For the benefit of their own kids or the good of mankind? </p>
<p>If you thought it COULD help, would you say no, don’t do it? Why do we hang out here if not to help kids succeed, whatever that means, in their college search?</p>
<p>I don’t have any evidence this isn’t true, but … Really? Adcoms won’t give parents the benefit of the doubt? Might they not think that a parent who calls his or her kid hard-working is simply not a particularly inventive writer rather than a spin doctor trying to paper over a “dullard’s” actually lackluster record? That’s discouraging.</p>
<p>They won’t take it as “papering over a dullard’s record”…but a sign that the applicant doesn’t have much to offer beyond a strong work-ethic. </p>
<p>In some academic/workplace milieu’s I’ve been in…that’s also considered a bit meaningless as being a “hard worker” is EXPECTED/ASSUMED…not something to single out someone for praises/compliments. As such…it is often taken as “damning with faint praise”. </p>
<p>I’ve often had to advise young neighbors applying to colleges to never use the term “hard worker” for that reason. It is also superfluous if you follow the maxim to “show rather than tell”.</p>
<p>If adcoms have to “tone” expectations of GC letters based on knowing that Johnny is at Elite Prep School vs Overcrowded Public High … Then what is the point? It’s just redundant information that reiterates that the student attends a certain kind of hs, which the adcom already knows.</p>
<p>But again - if the adcom is going to have to temper the parent letters by recognizing - hey, Johnny’s parents are both well-educated professionals who crafted very insightful prose about Johnny, whereas Mary’s parents are less-educated or not-English-speakers who didn’t really know what more to say other than to say that Mary is hard-working and really wants to go to college Y – then WHAT IS THE POINT? It is just information that is redundant to what they already know from the rest of the application, zip code, high school attended, and so forth -that Johnny is privileged and Mary isn’t. </p>
<p>I find it stupid that adcoms even ask for GC letters when they KNOW they have to discount most of them from Average Public High, since they already KNOW the kid goes to Average Public High. It’s the same principle here. Exactly the same. It’s providing context about the kid that is already known from the rest of the app.</p>
<p>A rare thing just happened. My mind has been changed. Anyway, all my D’s acceptances are in. And I didn’t have to say a darned thing about how hard working she is.</p>