<p>According to a thread by MIT’s admission member Chris:</p>
<p>“Because listing the school you go to or ECAs you are involved in does not communicate the degree to which you are a vibrant member of the community, does not communicate what your coaches or teachers or mentors will say about you, and those are the things we care about.”</p>
<p>So some colleges REALLY look at your recommendations, in order to see how well you care about others.</p>
<p>To chime in about the large number of recommendation letters that Ad Coms have to read, I’m assuming they use the rest of your application (the portions that involve less reading- like your SAT scores and GPA) to select strong students and then read rec letters. I’m guessing Harvard gets a lot of “fluff” or “joke” applications from people with less than stellar grades. They probably don’t bother reading everything for those people…</p>
<p>Other than that, I’m not sure I can contribute to the discussion much. My teachers adore me, it’s a very small school so I know them well, and I’m easily a standout student in comparision to my classmates. A few teachers that have written rec letters have let me read them: absolutely beautiful.</p>