The following recommendation was submitted to highly selective colleges and universities. (The student's name has been changed.)
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She knew we were scheduled to meet behind closed doors— to get information for her sister’s recommendation (whose reserve had left lots of room for more detail):
“Hi, I’m Grace Wang, Lilly’s sister. I came to tell you Lily can cook, make her own clothes, plays jokes on the family, and isn’t nearly as quiet as she seems.”—In one breath. Hardly inscrutable, Grace is our school’s irresistible, irrepressible scholar, leader and athlete.
After our principal settles the emotional issue of whether or not to adopt a warmer winter uniform, he plans to address another hot issue: Should we prevent our students from taking too many APs? After dinner with the 5 top academic scholars he showed up the next morning with this opening line: “How does Grace do it?”
Poet, runner, artist, scientist, debater, Grace has vivacity, energy and a flood of interests. Her verbal genius is legendary around our school. She can intuit and answer when the rest of the class has nothing to say and her writing turns whatever she has to say into something beautiful t read. Dr. Smith, the head of the English dept., writes: Grace’s prose style, vivid and detailed, fluid and coherent, makes her one of the two most promising stylists I have taught in 15 years of college and secondary school teaching.” Grace’s summer and its aftermath gave out literary review its best poem of the year (see attached). It could have given her the editorship of the literary magazine, but she chooses to edit the yearbook instead. Grace also runs about 2 hours every day for the cross-country team, which is one of the best in the state (top 2 the last 2 years). She also runs varsity track. She’s not the star among a group of state championship contenders; instead she runs for personal satisfaction and plan to continue to run in college.
It is hard to encapsulate this incorrigibly curious and energetic seventeen year old whose wee hour religious bull sessions and leisure time reading of “The Tao of Physics” hurled her headlong into two college physics courses at our local university “because I wanted to see if my family’s religious faith, my brother's college courses in eastern religions, and the physicists’ view of the universe have anything in common.” During her free period she haunts the library like Poe’s Raven rifling through the range of books that speaks to her eclectic range of interests. Then, before you turn around, she, with the deft hand of an artist, has illustrated the contents of the living cell to earn an A+ in the course and a 5 on the AP exam. Grace’s AP Art teacher says Grace’s oil painting of a gymnast will be permanently hung at our school. This poet and scientist loves to research and loves to create. Over the Holiday break last year she turned down a fancy internship in New York for a stay in the Oefenokee Swamp where she unloaded her gear to check out the ecological importance of marshes. Grace’s greedy need to know keeps her poking into every area of the arts and sciences. On her regular rounds of the library, this 11 year vet piano player located some music appropriate for a trio, rounded up a cellist and violinist, talked their way into performing for a special occasion and wound up soloist when the other two backed out at the last minute.
Graces wins class elections and class academic awards, runs varsity sports, is VP of NHS, and helps our school win math and science contests. Ranked 5th in the class, with 1450 SATs, she’s motivated, but it’s the additional out of the spotlight enterprises, which attract her and say more about who she really is. Although she is a member of the school’s literary society for which she must read extra, she is the only senior who reads for and attends another literary discussion club primarily for the younger students. She’s organized a lunch meeting club whose members read French novels for fun, writes essays about them in French and then gets together to discuss them—all for no credit.
Grace stands apart from the other seniors I her awareness of national and international current events. 6 APs this year plus French 5 (she’s already fluent in Mandarin) with 15 organizations, Grace keeps up with newsfeeds and may be one of the few students left who watches Jim Leher almost every night. Last week her English teacher blasted into the faculty lounge: “It’s more than I can stand, Grace knew Adelai Stevenson wrote this passage, knew what an egghead he was, had some knowledge of Illinois politics in the 50's, had heard of Mayor Daley and the democratic machine…and I hadn’t assigned any of it.”
1968 Democratic Convention
Grace is also a member of our It’s Academic team where TV lighting or the audience sitting in the studio does not slow her quick button answers. In city forensic meets, judges might as well be stones as far as Grace’s nerves go, but they did get their attention when it became clear that their religious views in the religious and less than open-minded part of the world l were not impressed with her views of Women’s Rights in the US and around the world.
Her coursework has taken a toll, as she’s not one to have much sympathy for homework on assignments for statewide tests on things that she’s learned long ago. She’d rather sneak time in to play with children in the snow, or write a poem or play something challenging on the piano. She writes fluidly and quickly and has felt bored when endless rewrites are often the order of the day in classes. She’s ready for deeper waters.
By far the most admirable characteristic to Grace’s approach to learning is her exciting, undying infatuation with almost everything. We live in a time in which getting ahead is all and she comes from a background where this is often handed down as the order of the day, week, year and life. And she’s fought for her passions. Many slave for advanced degrees in subject’s that do not interest them for the sake of a better job and to make parents happy. In a time when many English majors no longer read books and med students care little for anatomy, it is hopeful that a high school senior can be swept off her feet by the mating of moon snails, a 3-D printer, the French Suite in G major, the synthesis of lysomes. God grant that she may so continue-for her sake and for ours.
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Questions:
Based on this recommendation, rate this student from 1-5 with 5 being the highest. What rating did you give her and why?
Rate the writer of this recommendation from 1-5 based on her use of detail, specific examples, and support of this student. What rating did you give and why?
Would you characterize this student as well rounded? If so, is this a good quality for getting admitted to highly selective schools?
Should the writer have emphasized this student’s Asian heritage more than is presented in this recommendation? Why or why not?
Would you argue that this student would add diversity to her college or university? Why or why not?
This student earned a C+ in AP calculus at mid-year. Should this grade significantly affect her chances of being accepted to selective schools? Why or why not?
Does the fact that she was not admitted to many top schools surprise you? Why or why not?
Do you think Asians are held to higher standards than other students?
Can't rate the student. It's a puff piece and the recommender is full of him or herself, insinuating personal values everywhere. The letter is horrible, with several incomprehensible sentences.
ReplyDeleteI find it unlikely the student's described achievements are real. She's invaluable to the math/science teams, but gets a C+ in AP Calc? What kind of support did she provide the team--cheerleading?
Yes, Asians are held to higher standards. I explained partly why in my post.
I feel sorry for Lilly, her sister . . . But regarding the rec letter: I am a college counselor in an international high school. I write recommendations for students applying to all kinds of colleges, including highly selective ones. I like to think I spend a good deal of time gathering details about students, especially ones who have done a lot and who have loads of potential.
ReplyDeleteI think this is an amazing letter, overall. Yes, there are some sentences that roll headlong and yes, the writer is a bit full of himself/herself, but it seems genuinely in the service of the student. Nobody spends this much time writing a rec who really, really doesn't like the student. Either the writer is at a tiny school and knows the student very well, or he/she as a very small caseload and had a month to put together all those details. You cannot write that letter quickly, even if you're making it up. It does sound unbelievable that one student could do all those things, but the fact that she made a C+ in AP Calc humanizes her (the student), to me.
As for being Asian: what matters to me in this recommendation is what the student has done. That's the case the writer is making. I suppose the writer is emphasizing Grace's well-roundedness to go against the stereotype, but I see no problem with that, as long as the writer is telling the truth (which will be confirmed or not by the teachers' letters, and probably by the student's essays in to a degree). The writer knows her audience: the admission officers.
I am surprised that this student didn't get into highly selective colleges. If one C+ matters that much for a student like this, we are in a sad state.