One college my older son applied to asked for a graded paper with teacher’s comments. That helps corroborate the writing level, vocabulary, insight, possibly voice. And gives AOs another window into the student’s mind. Maybe more should request that (even if they don’t always read it!).
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^Among the super elites, only Princeton asks for a HS graded paper, if I recall.
Amherst gives the option of sending a graded paper instead of answering their essay.
@MIP750 I don’t disagree. It’s just that I’ve read a lot of essays that seemed to use big words for no good reason and sounded pretentious. (Please no plethoras!) But I’m not saying you should dumb yourself down. If you can show your intellectual chops and still sound authentic, that’s great.
My older son got into some of the nitty gritty of computer programming. In fact I think in one case the admission’s officers may have passed it on the head of the department - I’m not sure they knew if what he’d done was of note or not - because we got a call from that professor urging him to attend that college.
I’ve always thought that graded paper option sounded interesting. It probably helps the AOs see what kind of school you came from as well.
Ha! I call those words (plethora) “Shift F7” words. Remember that old thesaurus command? And no he didn’t use those sorts of words. He wrote about a personal experience that caused him to pursue self education in a particular discipline. His language and narrative in the essay is informed by that discipline.
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Princeton asks for a graded paper in addition to, not instead of, the required essays.
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In debriefs I have had with Yale AO’s, they have made it a point that they often see essays (Common App) that looked like they “were written by a 50 year old lawyer and not a 17 year old” or were inconsistent in language or style compared to the short essays elsewhere in the app. They made it a point that if there was one piece of the app that could get their attention in a good way was the teacher LoR’s which were coming from an independent source. It wasn’t so much how well the LoR was written or the effusiveness of the adjectives, but tying student actions with desired characteristics, such as intellectual curiosity and ability to engage in class with the teacher as well as classmates in addition to raw intellect.
It is difficult for this year’s juniors to build relationships with teachers virtually (most students are primarily virtual), so will be interesting to see the quality and content of next year’s LoRs. Not saying it’s not possible to build a relationship with a teacher virtually, but it’s just not the same. It’s another advantage for relatively affluent students, who are more likely to currently be in school, at least part-time.
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I was walking by my D21’s room the other day and heard her on zoom speaking in her broken Spanish, “But Senoraaa… “muy bien” is not a 92! It should be a 100!” 
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Presumably you mean on top of the existing advantages that affluent students tend to have with LoRs, due to their teachers and counselors likely having more practice (and probably coaching from dedicated college admissions staff at some elite high schools) writing LoRs.
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Again, that assumes and stereotypes. Affluent students can be ho-hum and lower SES kids can have dedicated teachers. Ime, the issue is kids in the middle, at more average high schools. That’s where you can see pro forma LoRs that just run thru ECs and superficials.
The bright, achieving lower SES kids can be getting mentoring, too. And we’re talking elites.
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IMO, LoR’s that make a difference are not based on style, vocabulary or formula. They are based on the substance of the evaluation of the teacher of the student based on facts and circumstances. I agree that counselor letters can vary greatly between private prep school GCs and big publics. My kids’ large public HS GC was 0 help in the college process. There were 6 counselors handling over 2,000 students. Their job was to herd them through graduation, with most students going into CC or state publics. Several of my close friends on the 2 coasts with kids in private prep schools had amazing support from their GC’s. On the other hand, my kids were fortunate to have very dedicated AP teachers that took my kids under their wing and I am sure wrote effective LoR’s.
I don’t doubt affluence is a huge advantage, but I think the tippy tops do factor in SES pretty heavily across different metrics in their holistic process. I just look at the Yale demographics for the past 2 admissions cycles, and we see Pell Grant students at 20% and first gen students at close to 20%. I do think there is justification for those in the middle feeling squeezed. Beyond the dozen or so true development cases, there are the real issues of access to feeder schools, test prep/private counseling and EC’s. It can be an unfair arms race.
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It certainly wasn’t true in our part of the country. In fact, one of the SATs resulted in a big high school covid outbreak. After 4 cancelations there came a point where it was ridiculous and I told my kid to just forget it and concentrate on other things (like trying to eek out some joy from something in this year.)
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And my daughter did the opposite. She was literal with the “List 5 awards” and she comes from a school that doesn’t send kids to ivies (the scattergrams are so depressing) and she couldn’t get an SAT or ACT done. I don’t think it occurred to her that she should use the additional section for anything else. She said that she doesn’t have food insecurity and didn’t lose a family member to covid and if they wanted more awards they would have put in more lines for them. I wish I had read these posts earlier but what’s done is done and we’ll see how it shakes out, I guess. In these times it’s hard to imagine that adding extra covid related information would be a detriment.
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That assumes that the teacher makes thoughtful (or any) comments.
While 46% of Yale frosh are there paying list price with no grant or scholarship money… that is the SES level that is most heavily overrepresented (under 5% of the overall population). For first generation and Pell grant students, 20% is still underrepresented compared to the proportion of such students at all colleges.
@BKSquared That is so funny. My husband is a 60 something year old lawyer and I do remember my son discussing with him some word or grammatical change my husband suggested and my son saying no, “who writes like that”. And I said, “a lawyer who’s used to formal, proper writing” lol. My husband’s pet peeve is when someone ends a sentence with a preposition, but these days that is ok in the context of writing a college essay. In legal writing, it is not.
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I often think of the preposition rule but it tends to feel overly formal or unnatural in everyday language. At least that’s my perception.
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Exactly so can you picture the lawyer vs 18 year old debate on that one. It happened two years ago with my daughters too and one is a much better writer than the other so it was pretty funny. I remember she either asked her English teacher or maybe looked it up online and was none too proud of herself to point out the specific language about it. It’s sort of like how the ACT has ; on it but kids aren’t really taught their usage these days anymore so if kids go through test prep, once they learn that, it can immediately boost their English score. I’ve always felt my husband writes way too formal that it even comes across as cold and formal. It’s fine in business, but when you email a family member, it doesn’t always come across the right way and that’s not always a good thing. (ie never using contractions)
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Comparing Yale (or any selective college) statistically to the general population or even college students in general is not a good way to look at how low or high SES impacts decision making or how committed an institution is to diversity given its educational mission. To really see if there are institutional pluses are minuses for SES (low to high), we have to see how many applicants were in each SES segment and the resulting admit rate plus looking at average or median AI (while not perfect, it at least establishes some academic strength benchmark) for each segment. I highly doubt that the number of Pell eligible or first gen applicants is anywhere close to 20% of the total applicants. There has been an active institutional push for underrepresented groups. My S has been an “ambassador” for the AO since frosh year. They don’t assign him to the magnet or private schools in town, but the ones on “the other side of the tracks” or in rural areas surrounding our city.
I’d also bet dollars to donuts that more than 46% of applicants come from families that would not qualify for aid. That is the nature of the beast when we look at the applicant pools of HYPS and similars.
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