<p>“I believe adcoms take it for granted that the most intelligent students avoid unfair teachers, who are easily identifiable in any HS, and that failure to do so implies (take your pick) ignorance, indifference, arrogance, ineffective system manipulation, or stupidity.”</p>
<p>Um, that doesn’t really make any sense. At many/most schools, students have no control over what teacher they get. At my school the only way you can avoid a teacher is if you’ve already had them, and once you have a bad teacher there’s no way to get out except for switching levels, which isn’t the optimal solution. Obviously if students had control over their teachers, then choosing to get the fair teachers would be the smarter choice. However, that is rarely ever the case.</p>