Why do they need an admission committee ?

[LOLhere]

<p>^That’s what you already do with your essays. You try to sell yourself. But recs should really be somewhat random. </p>

<p>In the real world, yes, you do cherry pick your references. But then you only have so many bosses you can choose from, and most employers would call at least references. </p>

<p>IMO, recs shouldn’t place such a heavy weight. Unless adcoms are going to start reading 10 recs per applicant, then recs shouldn’t place such a heavy weight. </p>

<p>If I had a choice, I’d rather us those 2 pages to write 2 more essays to give them a more holistic picture than cherry-pick 2 teachers to write those 2 recs. It’s not that my teachers don’t like me or anything, but I just feel that they won’t talk about the real me. I act differently in each class so having 2 teachers to write recs for me wouldn’t be representative of the real me. </p>

<p>What I do think is that recs should be verifying EC’s, because I’m sure many applicants stretch the truth. </p>

<p>The other problem with the random idea is that students will try yet harder to place themselves into good classes. And if switching into a class with a better teacher doesn’t help, then students would rather drop the class.</p>

[coolweather]

<p>Ideally colleges don’t need teacher recs and counselor recs if at the end of each class, teachers write a half page or one page to evaluate students. Writing evaluation must be the job duty of teachers. Colleges should read these evaluations to admit students.</p>

<p>In the real world, people don’t write a short essay to apply for a job. People write a resume to highlight experience and past performane and go through one or more interviews to get the job.</p>

[mathboy98]

<p>

In the real world, people don’t write a short essay to apply for a job. People write a resume to highlight experience and past performane and go through one or more interviews to get the job.

</p>

<p>Quoted for truth. This exactly pinpoints my problem with the essays in place. They’re short, often somewhat less than straightforward questions with unclear intentions. A simple resume plus an objective bombarding by an interviewer who’s honest about what (s)he wants is exactly what’s needed; an essay can help too, but only if it’s straightforward. </p>

<p>Letters of recommendation would ideally not exist in favor of a short summary a teacher writes, as someone posted above, of a student’s performance in any course. Obviously some teachers will have little to say, others will have more. </p>

<p>I don’t quite understand, however, those who think handpicking recommenders is a bad thing. I think the problem is the credibility of the recommenders. Basically a student should have to pick recommenders who not only can speak good of them, but have it mean something. This is a common thing in the graduate process.</p>

[amarkov]

<p>Not allowing applicants to choose their recommenders ALSO presents an inaccurate picture of them, though.</p>

<p>For instance, I have had 17 teachers throughout high school. But my strengths lie heavily in math, and due to the wonderful American high school system only 4 of those teachers were for either math or a math-based science.</p>

<p>The problem is, the other 13 teachers could not possibly write me a good recommendation. I liked most of them pretty well, and got decent grades in all their classes. But they can’t write about what a wonderful student I am, because I wasn’t in fact a wonderful student in their classes. So the only thing they can do is give the “X is very kind and respectful and participated well” letter that doesn’t communicate any useful information. </p>

<p>Why is this preferable?</p>

[mathboy98]

<p>Yeah I’m going to have to agree with the above. An arbitrary LOR says nothing – I view the LOR as icing in the case of the high school to college transition, as opposed to a hugely crucial part in the case of graduate school admissions, where one is looking for very specialized remarks that only a single professor or two can really say. </p>

<p>Basically a randomized system says that those who randomly get a choice of someone who knows them well win.</p>

<p>What I propose is that LORs be evaluated in context of reliable recommenders only, and if this reliability cannot be ascertained, they simply cannot figure into the process without being flawed. </p>

<p>If something other than the current system were to be put in place, rather than random selection, I would propose that every teacher should have to write something significant about the given student, so that a complete picture, rather than a lotto system, be given. After all, the polling sample for the given student is too small for a randomized system to work – most likely, a teacher who has little to say would be picked. Heck, I didn’t care about all my classes in high school, just achieved good results in most and went on, but in some of them there was probably something above and beyond to say.</p>

[sakky]

<p>Not to be harsh, but the above objections, frankly, betray a lack of understanding regarding the utility and usage of statistical inference. </p>

<p>Obviously through a random sample, the chances of obtaining one or even two useless, or even negative, LOR’s is highly probable. But that’s not the point. What matters is the aggregate opinion of a randpm sample of a reasonably large sample size - of which I recommended ~10 - via which one could then draw confidence bounds about the true ‘assessment’ of the candidate in question.</p>

<p>Put another way, let’s say that you wanted to find out how Americans perceive the job approval of Barack Obama. You don’t simply ask the opinion of 1 or 2 people. You also certainly don’t ask the specific hand-picked bunch of people that Obama happens to selects. Instead, you select a random sample of Americans, and you can then draw a proper inference, restricted to a certain confidence interval. Likely, one would obtain some highly partisan anti-Obama opinions, balanced with pro-Obama opinions, and the aggregate would provide a relatively accurate picture. </p>

<p>Of course that is if you are actually attempting to ascertain the true nature of the applicant. If you’re not really trying to do that - and your real goal is to elicit an advertisement from the candidate - then one has to question what is the real value of that exercise at all. Is it all just a game? The candidate provides a hand-picked and distorted view of himself, and the adcom knows that they’re receiving a hand-picked, distorted view, and it all becomes a cynically sad version of kabuki theater.</p>

[mathboy98]

<p>

What matters is the aggregate opinion of a randpm sample of a reasonably large sample size - of which I recommended ~10

</p>

<p>OK, I’m liking all this better if you say around 10 – I was in fact worried that some poster was forgetting that sample size is quite important in a random sampling. </p>

<p>Nevertheless, I will perhaps wonder to what extent a recommender is really the same as an advertiser. In the case of the presidency example Sakky, I definitely see the objection. Remembering back to my teachers though, they were hardly soft – they rewarded only the strong students, and it seems more likely the LORs they wrote were pretty objective. The question is, of course, do you think this scenario is atypical, and why – i.e., is the average teacher in the average high school just a student’s designated sweet-talker for admissions? You may be right in suspecting it. Which is why I emphasize so much the credentials of the teacher, i.e. if their recommendation means anything. I feel selecting a random sample from a school full of largely hopeless teachers may just not work, and that LORs might be an entirely negligible factor in that case, whereas a strong LOR from a teacher who’s taught physics AP for 20 years and is extremely thorough, might actually mean something. </p>

<p>All in all, though, what I think might be a good consensus is that many recommendations simply gives a better picture, and perhaps having 10 recommendations dramatically lessens the chances that only sweet-talkers will be on the “recommendation committee.”</p>

<p>Basically my one objection to the 10 recommendations is that it may be simply a waste to generate all of them, because for instance a letter from my old foreign language teachers would not say terribly much about my potential to succeed in college, much less than say my physics, math, or English teachers, since I was active in these classes. This is in response to the proposition that we should include a larger sample size to generate a “true” picture of the applicant. </p>

<p>What I am perhaps gathering is that you don’t think the student’s overall school performance, standardized tests, etc, are a sanity check as to whether this is a truly good student. Though, again this comes back to the competence of the teachers and the courses they run. What I always viewed the LOR as was a more descriptive addition based on a student’s feel for who can write things that are actually relevant about them. That is, to go to the presidency example, the grades in various courses can be viewed as something of polls as to the student’s performance, and the letters can ideally be viewed as objective advertisement.</p>

<p>Let me make one other suggestion. In the case of the graduate school process, typically where the credibility of recommenders is somewhat lacking, students are forced to rely on standardized tests much more in proving themselves. Perhaps this extends logically down to our own discussion.</p>

[sakky]

<p>

Basically my one objection to the 10 recommendations is that it may be simply a waste to generate all of them, because for instance a letter from my old foreign language teachers would not say terribly much about my potential to succeed in college, much less than say my physics, math, or English teachers, since I was active in these classes.

</p>

<p>I doubt that it would be more of a waste than what occurs under the current system, which I think you would agree is broken. As I stated before, under the current system, students merely handpick their favorite ‘advertisers’, everybody knows that they’re handpicking their favorite advertisers, and as a result, nobody really pays much credence to the entire affair. We have all surely developed extensive skepticism and resistance to advertising; nobody except the most naively credulous truly believes the exaggerated claims and sometimes outright bull feces that firms state in their ads, and surely the same can be said regarding adcoms and LOR’s. </p>

<p>Granted, hand-picked LOR’s may work reasonably well with PhD admissions where the recommenders have well-established reputations for objectivity with the adcom in question. But let’s face it: the overwhelming majority of high school teachers are unknown quantities to any given college adcom. They haven’t a clue whether ‘Mr. Smith from homeroom’ is a crotchety tough old teacher who only provides strong recommendations to a tiny handful of students, or whether he’s a ‘recommendation-whore’ who happily provides one to anybody who asks. {For this reason I used to think that we needed additional LOR’s regarding the recommenders themselves, but we would then need LOR’s regarding that second level of recommenders, etc., resulting in an infinitely recursive chain of bull feces.} </p>

<p>

What I am perhaps gathering is that you don’t think the student’s overall school performance, standardized tests, etc, are a sanity check as to whether this is a truly good student.

</p>

<p>Then this comes down to the question of what the true purpose of a LOR really is. The adcom already has your grades and test scores. The purpose of LOR’s, in my opinion, is to add another dimension by discussing elements of the candidate’s character beyond mere grades and test scores. But that is clearly subverted if the student is allowed to pick his recommenders. </p>

<p>

and the letters can ideally be viewed as objective advertisement.

</p>

<p>That seems like an oxymoron in terms. Either something is objective, or it is an advertisement. Surely we all understand that advertising is little more than ‘savvy deception/misrepresentation’. A restaurant is going to try to make its burger look as tasty and juicy as possible, but of course will play down any mention of how many calories it has. Companies will pay celebrities to endorse their products, often times when the celebrity doesn’t even like the product at all, or, heck, even when the product would ironically place the celebrity in grave danger (i.e. consider Eric Clapton’s appearance in Michelob commercials only to then announce he was entering rehab for alcoholism, or James Garner’s work as a spokesman for the beef industry only to then suffer a heart condition that required quintuple coronary bypass surgery} .</p>

[mathboy98]

<p>

Then this comes down to the question of what the true purpose of a LOR really is. The adcom already has your grades and test scores. The purpose of LOR’s, in my opinion, is to add another dimension by discussing elements of the candidate’s character beyond mere grades and test scores. But that is clearly subverted if the student is allowed to pick his recommenders.

</p>

<p>

That seems like an oxymoron in terms. Either something is objective, or it is an advertisement.

</p>

<p>

They haven’t a clue whether ‘Mr. Smith from homeroom’ is a crotchety tough old teacher who only provides strong recommendations to a tiny handful of students, or whether he’s a ‘recommendation-whore’ who happily provides one to anybody who asks. {For this reason I used to think that we needed additional LOR’s regarding the recommenders themselves, but we would then need LOR’s regarding that second level of recommenders, etc., resulting in an infinitely recursive chain of bull feces.}

</p>

<p>I am giving above all the lines I think most relevant to my discussion here – I think I understand and agree with the general problem you have. Let me mention that I think the problem grows deeper rooted than even what you’re explicitly saying – the average high school may neither have teachers with good credentials to recommend, nor ones who run good enough courses for a student’s performance in them to be worth very much. </p>

<p>I also agree that there would be an infinitely recursive chain of nonsense if people were to recommend recommenders of recommenders of recommenders…</p>

<p>However, here is my (slightly different) conclusion arising from perhaps even greater skepticism: I don’t even think a random sampling of recommendations adds to the picture. The random sample you speak of in some ways really is a student’s grades – teachers generally have small enough class sizes that the way they graded a given student tends to reflect what they thought of the student’s work. If those mean very little, then who really cares about reading an additional essay by a teacher? I view essays by teachers as a bonus, speaking to what exciting things the student does bring to the table beyond what grades show, not a sanity check as to the true nature of the applicant. Then it’s left to the school to take one positive over another, depending on what it wants really. It would only make sense that a teacher the student knows very well be hand-picked by the student, as in the PhD case, given otherwise there is little to say beyond the grade they awarded, normalized against any standardized testing. If the qualification of a recommender is unknown, I think the recommendations should just be tossed out as any real factor in admitting the student, because the grades represent a random sample as to what teachers think anyway. </p>

<p>I would go as far as to say that if the grades don’t mean very much, then the school itself should be taken with a grain of salt, and one must defer to standardized testing. This is what happens in PhD admissions, where they are it seems extremely harsh in measuring the credibility of a recommender.
Further, in this admissions process, courses taken under known individuals with good credentials tend to add more of a positive than those under an arbitrary individual. </p>

<p>Very short summary: if the school is well-known with good teachers, then take those recommendations to heart. Else, take them with a grain of salt and defer to more standardized measures.</p>

[sakky]

<p>

However, here is my (slightly different) conclusion arising from perhaps even greater skepticism: I don’t even think a random sampling of recommendations adds to the picture. The random sample you speak of in some ways really is a student’s grades – teachers generally have small enough class sizes that the way they graded a given student tends to reflect what they thought of the student’s work. If those mean very little, then who really cares about reading an additional essay by a teacher? I view essays by teachers as a bonus, speaking to what exciting things the student does bring to the table beyond what grades show, not a sanity check as to the true nature of the applicant.

</p>

<p>As I said before, I’ve always viewed LOR’s as a way for adcoms to obtain a view of the students beyond merely their academic performance. For example, surely we’ve all met people who are indisputably academic superstars, but also have serious character issues. They will pull top grades because nobody can deny that their academic performance is stellar, rather, it’s the issues apart from pure academic performance for which people will harbor doubts. Conversely, we’ve surely all known those students whose academic performance may be relatively substandard, but has otherwise outstanding character and might therefore warrant some forgiveness for their lower-than-expected grades. For example, consider a student whose grades weren’t stellar, but who was well known to be the main breadwinner of his family, as his mother was sick and couldn’t work, and his father was long gone, and he had to put food on the table. A series of strong and reliable LOR’s could explain the seemingly low grades.</p>

<p>But of course that can only work if the LOR’s are reliable, which is undermined if the students themselves choose the recommenders. Then, like I said, it all merely becomes one big exercise in advertising, of which the veracity is then justifiably doubted by the adcom.</p>

[LOLhere]

<p>@amarkov: It’s not just about what you’re good at. Recs should be commenting more on your character. Like people have already mentioned, you can suck at a subject, and still get a good rec by trying really hard in it. </p>

<p>How is it inaccurate? The rec should be representative of the overall you. You’ve spend 1/17 of your total time in that Math class, and you have a 1/17 chance of getting that teacher to write you a rec. </p>

<p>But again, as a I mentioned earlier, if recs were random, then students would be more likely to drop the class (or switch out) if they get a bad teacher. </p>

<p>The best way to do this is for one teacher to be hand-picked and the other random.</p>

[amarkov]

<p>But WHY should it be representative of the overall me? I have no plans to be a wonderful English student in college, any more than some of my friends plan to be wonderful math students. What good comes from forcing us to show enthusiasm in subjects we have no interest in?</p>

[LOLhere]

<p>again, the best way to compromise is to have one rec that’s hand-picked and the other random.</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>The medical residency match is computerized. Each side lists its top choices. However, residency pays; you pay to attend college, that’s the rub.</p>

[mathboy98]

<p>

I’ve always viewed LOR’s as a way for adcoms to obtain a view of the students beyond merely their academic performance.

</p>

<p>I guess I view the LOR as a way to be descriptive about what’s so special about a student’s academics, in context of a place where they shone, not an average sampling of how a student acts in various classrooms or a discussion of the student’s character. Something like a student’s exceptional circumstances like taking care of an ill mother are best explained by the student himself, because a teacher <em>on average</em> does not have to interact with a student beyond the classroom. </p>

<p>Basically, I wouldn’t trust a teacher to be able to discuss any more than salient aspects of academic performance beyond what a grade shows. And as for stellar aspects of academic performance, well randomness does away with the fact a student inevitably cares more about some types of courses than others, as another states above. College is after all a place where one has freedom as to what types of courses and activities one wants to engage in. It makes most sense to get a description of a student’s character within the settings (s)he loves to thrive in. </p>

<p>To give myself as an example, I’m quite certain my teachers from high school would have all said I show plenty of academic potential, but I didn’t really show much character or potential beyond quite often shining academically among my high school peers in most classrooms. In classes like social studies, foreign language, etc, I would be simply sitting in the back not paying too much attention at times, and just read the book.</p>

<p>Those I chose to recommend me, on the other hand, saw me really shine and perhaps engage in discussions beyond the scope of the classroom. I’ll have you guess what one of the subjects a recommender of mine taught :D</p>

<p>Now, this by no means has anything to do with having picked out a major ahead of time and predicting success in it through recommendations. It has to do with a teacher being selected to talk about what a student does academically when relatively interested in the material. I’m pretty sure the professors I’ve had in college would go back to whatever recommendation aforementioned wrote, and say “yup, he really has that enthusiasm and more” and not gain anything out of a random batch of other teachers recommending me. It’s about relevance.</p>

[mathboy98]

<p>

again, the best way to compromise is to have one rec that’s hand-picked and the other random.

</p>

<p>

Recs should be commenting more on your character. Like people have already mentioned, you can suck at a subject, and still get a good rec by trying really hard in it.

</p>

<p>If you were interested in a subject and tried hard at it, with huge success and improvement, you should definitely choose that teacher to recommend you. Trying brutally hard at random subjects or demonstrating character in every random setting really doesn’t speak much more to potential in college so much as doing pretty well in a number of them, and exceptionally shining in an area or two, perhaps leading to one’s focus in college.</p>

<p>The “average you” in a classroom is hardly as relevant as the most enthusiastic you, because you can make many more choices in college.</p>

<p>I think the system today has one main problem: lack of adequate standardized measure. I think grades and teacher recommendations should be normalized against plenty of standardized measures that are challenging and reflective of real college work.</p>

[sakky]

<p>

But again, as a I mentioned earlier, if recs were random, then students would be more likely to drop the class (or switch out) if they get a bad teacher.

</p>

<p>I don’t see how that’s different from the current system in which people simply don’t ask bad teachers for recs. </p>

<p>

But WHY should it be representative of the overall me? I have no plans to be a wonderful English student in college, any more than some of my friends plan to be wonderful math students. What good comes from forcing us to show enthusiasm in subjects we have no interest in?

</p>

<p>I’m not asking you to show enthusiasm for subjects you’re not interested in. Sure, you won’t obtain a strong rec from those particular teachers, if randomly picked. But neither will any of the other applicants who are like you (subject to sampling variability). </p>

<p>Again, you have to compare the proposed system to the status quo, and the status quo is broken. Under the current system, you don’t actually have to demonstrate true enthusiasm for any subject - you just have to cherry-pick 3 teachers who will say that you did. Adcoms know that you’re likely to do this, and they discount the LOR’s accordingly (or they should), which then begs the question of why even have the process at all. </p>

<p>As an analogy, if I’m considering whether to spend $10 to watch the movie Avatar or some other movie, should I trust the advice of James Cameron, or 3 people that he specifically handpicks? Of course Cameron is going to promote his movies; I wouldn’t expect him to do otherwise. Cameron even once (jokingly) said that Piranha 2 was the best flying piranha movie ever made, does that mean that I should see it? </p>

<p>The current system lacks credibility. Even if you are indeed enthusiastic about a particular subject, the current system provides no mechanism for reliably communicating that information, as the adcom knows full well that you’ve handpicked 3 recommenders who may simply be easy ‘rec whores’, and hence discounts the value of the LOR’s accordingly. However, a random process that obtains an enthusiastic rec from even just 1 randomly selected teacher carries greater credibility. Put another way, I would place far more weight upon the opinion of 1 randomly selected movie critic that loves Avatar than the opinions of 3 people that Cameron himself nominated.</p>

[sakky]

<p>

Now, this by no means has anything to do with having picked out a major ahead of time and predicting success in it through recommendations. It has to do with a teacher being selected to talk about what a student does academically when relatively interested in the material. I’m pretty sure the professors I’ve had in college would go back to whatever recommendation aforementioned wrote, and say “yup, he really has that enthusiasm and more” and not gain anything out of a random batch of other teachers recommending me. It’s about relevance.

</p>

<p>And as explained in the last post I just wrote, what I care about is credibility. Put another way, it’s more important to obtain a irrelevant but credible LOR than a relevant but not credible LOR. Any system where you are yourself allowed to pick your own recommenders is simply not credible, and the adcoms know it. They know full well, or ought to know, that you’re simply going to pick your 3 best recommenders, and hence are regarded as little more than advertising (and with the same credibility as advertising).</p>

[amarkov]

<p>But WHY is credibility more important than relevance?</p>

<p>I’m feeling like we’re going around in circles here. Credibility is important because otherwise recommendations are no more than advertisements, and it’s bad for recommendations to be like advertisements because then the information they give isn’t as credible. I agree that ideal recommendations would be from a credible source, but I don’t see why this is more important than any other consideration.</p>

[sakky]

<p>

But WHY is credibility more important than relevance?

</p>

<p>Because without credibility, nothing else matters.</p>

<p>To take the movie analogy one step further: James Cameron clearly is a genius movie director. His level of knowledge regarding movie-making is comparable to anybody else’s in the world.</p>

<p>But that doesn’t make him a credible source regarding the opinions of his own movies. {He may be a credible source regarding other director’s movies, but not his own.} If I were to ask him his opinions of his own movies, he would surely tout each and every one of them, and I wouldn’t expect him to behave in any other way. Hence, I know full well that his opinion about his own movies, relevant as it may be, simply isn’t credible and should not be treated as such. Cameron would surely recommend that I watch Piranha 2, but that doesn’t mean that I should believe him.</p>