I would hope and expect that most teachers wouldn’t go out of their way to mess with a 17 year old’s future. OTOH, if we assume teachers try to be as positive as possible while still be honest, there are some kids who just aren’t going to stand out in any class and who aren’t going to get outstanding LoR’s.
Last fall I had the chance to attend mock Admissions Committee sessions run by Tufts and Wesleyan. Both were interesting, but both made more or less the same points, so I don’t need to go to anymore.
Tufts has a roadshow that they brought to my son’s high school. As Tufts required, it was open to the general public. I’d advise going if they’re doing it near you and you’re interested in how the process works. They used files from applicants from the previous year, redacted to protect privacy. They started by showing us just grades and scores for 6 or 7 kids, then had us vote on who which 2 we’d admit. Then, over several steps, they added more info and asked us to vote at each step. It was a while ago, but it was something like, next step was adding the classes they took so we could see classes and rigor, then EC’s, then summaries/excerpts from essays and letters of recommendation. It was interesting to see how votes changed as you got more info for each kid and how the final admit votes were so different from the initial just grades and scores votes. Much of the point, which I knew but which became more vivid, was that once you’re talking about an applicant with the academic chops to succeed at the school, all the other factors are what allow you to sort out which of the many, many qualified applicants you actually want at your school and how the kid with the highest grades and scores isn’t necessarily the most interesting or compelling applicant.
At Wesleyan, the mock committee was part of a program Wesleyan runs for alums and their high school juniors. Slightly different set up than Tufts, as we saw all the info at once (Wesleyan and Tufts used basically the same sort of information), rather than step by step. But, again, it was clear that the whole file, the whole picture, says much more than just grades and scores and there can be excellent reasons to pick a kid with the slightly lower scores and grades over a kid with higher ones.
Now, neither program particularly addressed institutional priorities like legacies, URM’s, gender balance, geographic distribution, etc, etc. But both did provide a real sense of what it means to practice holistic admissions when the applicant pool consists mostly of students who could absolutely academically succeed at the school.
Of course, I could (we all could) decide that every time an AO or an admissions website says they practice holistic admissions, read every application completely and don’t have absolute grade or score cut offs , they’re all lying through their teeth. But I haven’t seen anything that leads me to believe that. No doubt AO’s spin some, while hopefully falling short of lying. They very clearly have non-answers to questions they don’t want to answer (eg, EDI vs EDII admit rates at many schools). But I’m inclined to basically take them at their word about whether or not they practice holistic admissions and what that means.
@NewEngParent Re the letters of recommendation, if the school or the Common App asks for letters from teachers, I would strongly urge you to have your kid get letters from teachers. If they schools wanted to hear from other people, they’d ask and sometimes they do. Dartmouth asks for a letter from a peer. University of Rochester asks for a letter from someone who isn’t a teacher. Both of those are in addition to the letters from teachers. Once in a great while, there will be a reason to add a letter that isn’t specifically asked for. A friend of mine has a daughter who is a high school junior here in New York. For reasons I don’t understand, there is a social science professor, head of his department at a top 10 university in a different part of the country (I’m deliberately being vague) who has chosen the town I live in as a place to do some research in his field. He is using local high school students to gather information, including my friend’s daughter, A. (No, none of this makes sense to me, but yes, it’s a real thing.) A, not surprisingly if you know her, is doing an amazing job. He adores her. He’s made it clear he’ll pull strings like crazy to get her into his school if she wants (unfortunately, doesn’t work for her for various reasons). Next year, he’s officially making her a TA just like his TA’s at the university and says her insights and observations are every bit as good as those from the undergrads he teaches. She won’t get paid, but she can legitimately put on her application that she is a TA for blah blah course at Top Twenty University. He will be writing her an extra recommendation letter that she’ll submit. Honestly, a circumstance like that or something similarly unusual and amazing is pretty much the only circumstance in which I’d suggest submitting a letter that wasn’t asked for. Otherwise, it’s good to remember the maxim: the thicker the file, the thicker the student.
I can’t find the post now, but somebody suggested not waiving your right to see your letters, so that you could pick and choose which to send. I see the point, but I’d remind people that common wisdom here on CC and in other places that talk about admissions, is that waiving your rights is the smart thing to do because the colleges will assume that teachers feel free to be honest in those letters.
In another post I can’t find, someone said they didn’t like The Gatekeepers because it didn’t really tell you how to get into a competitive school. I don’t believe that that was the point of the book. The author was a NYT reporter. The book was journalism, not a how-to. It’s not a guide to getting into schools, it’s insight into a process that is usually kept very private.