I wholeheartedly agree, and I have a kid who fits into that category. Great kid; smart, involved and engaged, but due to serious family illnesses and a LD she’d had a very rough academic patch. At the stats driven schools her admissions results were just about what would have been predicted, but at the schools that gave weight to LORs she way over performed, including acceptance to a not score optional school at which her ACT was a full 3 points below the lower margin of the 50th percentile and one of her main sub scores landed her in the 1st percentile. Her overall GPA was not strong, so I can only imagine that what made the difference was the story told in her essays and LORs. One of those who wrote her a LOR had given her a C so I can’t imagine he was checking off the “best ever” boxes, but he must nevertheless have had positive things to say about her.