I know that teachers have to fill out an evaluation generally and rank students in certain qualities (like leadership) from below average to like the best they’ve ever had. I was wondering how much weight is put on this in college admissions. I ask because its something that is very out of my control, which is stressful. Plus I’m sure some teachers will be super tough on their ratings while some teachers might not care and put the highest rating for basically everything…
For schools that ask for LORs, they can be very important. They give the AO’s another perspective of you.
I disagree that you have no control.
Yes, they’re one educator speaking to other educators. And for a competitive, holistic college, every piece of the app/supp matters.
LoRs aren’t always well done, adcoms can know how to work around the teachers or GC who just don’t know how to write these. But they also look for what’s between the lines.
Google Common Data Set and look at section C which will show you how much weight is given to all the things considered for admission.
IMO very heavily because even if your application is perfect in all other ways possible, a BAD recommendation (this student is lazy, doesn’t pay attention in class etc.) can and likely will break your application. However, as @Eeyore123 says, you DO have a say in your recommendations, and this is in choosing WHO to ask for a recommendation (except for your guidance counselor b/c you only have one: SO DON’T ANNOY THEM lol.)
Some questions to ask yourself is does this recommender know me and my interests well, did I do well in the class/show improvement etc. Something I read for asking for med school recommendations online applies here: ask the recommender if they are willing to write a college recommendation and would be able to write a strong letter supporting your candidacy for college? If the recommender appears to be overly busy, outright states that they write form letters, or doesn’t have much interest: then you probably don’t want that recommender to write you a letter.
Hope that helps! Good luck with admissions!
Particularly at competitive schools where colleges need to sift out from many applicants with very good academics, teacher LoRs can be quite significant. Teachers also don’t just rank stuff, they talk about the student (class participation, attitude, work ethic, whatever seems the key factors to them). That’s the important part…and that’s the part you can definitely affect.
By contrast, we were told by a few colleges that they do not place as much weight on those from guidance counselors for applicants from large high schools , as they understand it’s hard to get to know individual students well when there are a few hundred students per counselor.
I don’t think you can ascribe extreme importance based on this one specific scenario. Any single outlying data point can swing a decision when everything else is similar to other applicants.
At more selective schools they are important, but nowhere near as important as grades/gpa and course rigor - probably on par with ECs.
At larger or non-extremely-selective schools, LORs are often not even requested, so they are of no importance.