<p>My teachers showed me the (CommonApp) recommendations that they have written for me. The Evaluation part of both just says the usual stuff; friendly, helpful, reliable, well-liked member of our school community and so on. Nothing special in any regard. But in the Ratings section, there are so many markings in the "One of the top few encountered in my career" (three on one rec and four on the other) that I am afraid my recommendations look like a fake and will not be taken seriously or might even hurt me.
What are your thoughts on this?</p>
<p>bump......</p>
<p>I think if the colleges have experience with your school and have confidence in the recs they've received before then they will be believed. Also I would hope your grades and scores support the recs (otherwise it would be fishy).</p>
<p>I have great test scores and grades, but the point is that I am an international and in the last 10 years no single student from my school applied to a college in the US so my teachers kind of wanted to do me a favor.</p>
<p>Generally, your reccomendation (I believe) is looked upon to corroborate other parts of your application. If you claim you're a math genius, they'll look at your math teacher rec to see if this is true. The most valued recs tell something unique to the student; I've heard anecdotes about the student are good, superlatives, etc. For example, "Suzie demonstrated her dedication to science when she went above and beyond the requirement of our project on quantam mechanics. She produced the best paper I've ever seen in 30239403 years of teaching. She subsequently won 2039403 awards."</p>