For my first three years of high school, I attended a very small private school. My math teacher is also the school pastor and religion teacher (he entered Stanford with the intent of majoring in mathematics; at some point early on, due to a collection of experiences, he decided to also major in religious studies). I had him for religion classes for three years and math for one, so we know each other very well. He’s been my favorite teacher for the whole time and I think it’s safe to say that I’m one of his favorite/best students. Last year, for our Church History class, I was the only student that did honors level work (explanation: the class was designed to offer truly challenging, collegiate level work. At the beginning of the year, everyone had to sign up for what level they wanted to do, which would become their maximum possible grade in the class. B level was supposed to be like a hard high school class, A level was supposed to be like an entry level college class, and honors was supposed to be like a hard college class).
Through all of my years in his classes, I took time outside of class talking with him about things because I was genuinely very interested in the material. This connects to my passion for philosophy that I’m doing one of my essays on. Last year, I spent a lot of time outside of class with him learning about some more complex mathematical topics that I had read about that interested me. This time made it possible for me to skip Precalculus (I took algebra 2 last year and am taking AP Calc AB this year).
Last spring he was someone that I went to for advice regarding my student body president campaign (it was very heated). He knows how much effort I spent campaigning and the dedication that I had to student government.
This summer my high school closed suddenly due to financial reasons and I’ve transferred to a larger private school. I’ve been one of the only students that’s remained in contact with him.
TL;DR I’m confident he’ll say absolutely glowing things.
My other rec is coming from a science teacher that I’ve known for five years (my first high school was PreK-12, and I had the same science teacher for 7th-11th grade). My relationship with him is similar, and he was our class adviser, so he knows exactly what I did as class VP and class president.
Stanford also allows applicants to submit a third letter of rec from someone not a teacher or counselor. I think I’m going to ask my scoutmaster for that.