Ok. Thanks all.
But let me add from whatbthe mom said he’s like me so there no one who could be “one of his recommenders, who knows the student well and his struggles could address his progress and growth.”
My story was illustrated by my teacher junior year who told me that she was talking about the students my year with other faculty and how we were an unusually intellectually curious and hard working group and she mentioned my name and one of sophomore year teachers was like ( totally serious) " that’s so weird I didn’t know we had two students with that name. I had one of them in my class last year and she was one of the worst and laziest students I’ve had in some time!" Yeah that was me! He absolutely insisted it couldn’t be. And she was sure he must have mixed up the names !