^^
I agree completely with your assessment of where we are right now with LOR’s. I am not saying that is the way it should be in an ideal world, but that’s where we are. At least in my recent experience with 2 high school students.
I just finished the app process with my youngest and went through it 2 years ago with my eldest. Both attended private high schools where they had strong relationships with their teachers. Even in those ideal circumstances the amount of input requested from parents and students by their counselors to assist in the writing of the letters was extraordinary. I attribute this to the general hyper-competitiveness of admissions, the current trend of the student’s app having to “tell a story” and for the privates the reality that admissions results affect their reputation.
While the “optics” look bad, I wish I had been presented with the option of simply submitting a draft letter for them to work with as a starting point-- it would have been much simpler. We spent hours upon hours filling out questionnaires answering questions related to their early childhood and middle school years, submitting lists of every award, athletic accomplishment and service activity we could think of and recalling anecdotes/stories that might support positive personality traits. The students submit as much info if not more. They really do not want to miss a thing. Now of course the academic commentary comes completely from the teachers.
Now as their mother I certainly have a very good grasp of the “story” they are trying to tell in their app. I am very pragmatic and would have much preferred to submit my input in the format of a letter highlighting those things that would have the most impact, and let them pick and choose what they want to use. But instead they are sorting through reams of paper looking for highlights that most students/parents could present to them in a nutshell.
I have no inkling of how much if anything that we submitted found its way into the final letters as both of mine signed their waivers. If this is the scenario for high school students that are well known by their teachers, I cannot imagine what it is like for those who do not have those relationships.