<p>Assume I am a dishonest high school student applying to Dartmouth <a href="I%20am%20neither">b</a>**. I could write a fantastic peer rec (one of the best they've ever seen) myself, and get my best friend of twelve years to sign it without any problem whatsoever. </p>
<p>Isn't this a concern of Dartmouth's? I don't see how peer evaluations are a reliable source of information, because any of my high school friends last year would have happily fixed the evaluation.</p>
<p>Have you ever tried writing a recommendation for yourself? Some teachers will ask for one just to remind them of certain things that happened in a class that they may have forgotten, but it’s extremely difficult to write an essay trying to sound like someone else. You’d basically end up coming across as too optimistic, too critical, or may even reveal your own writing voice that also appeared in Common App essays. There’s something about rhythm or choice with words that we as humans just tend to catch; that’s especially how the IB program checks for plagiarism and that’s probably a huge part in Dartmouth’s assessment of peer evaluations. The chance of fraud does exist, and someone could even go as far to write one and have a friend rewrite it in that voice with even completely fraudulent information, but the college just has to assume that applicants intelligent or dedicated enough to excel academically all while being very active in the community will present a certain integrity in applications. If you were to go as far to dismiss the peer rec, an invaluable part of assessing how someone fits within a community, you could even make the argument to get rid of resumes since almost all students oversell themselves (with varying degrees of magnitude) in writing them.</p>
<p>TLDR: It’s complicated, but the added perspective outweighs the risk.</p>
<p>A person forging his/her Peer Eval is probably not Dartmouth material anyway.
You need to realize that most admitted students are exceptional, so I doubt it’s a concern for Dartmouth</p>
<ol>
<li><p>It is not as easy to disguise your “voice” as you think</p></li>
<li><p>If you are forging your peer rec, you will probably not be happy at Dartmouth. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Basically, does it happen? Probably. Do the people who do it also reveal themselves to be bad “fits” for the school in other ways? Probably.</p>
<p>Why would Dartmouth want the opinion of a 17-year-old anyways? Aren’t teacher recommendations so much better?</p>
<p>Dartmouth isn’t an all work school. It’s very important that the students are well rounded and excel in all aspects of life. Dartmouth isn’t looking for eggheaded students with zero social skills. To IvyLeague2020 it’s more than about the things the student has done in school. Peers know more about each other than teachers would (or should) and it just lets the school know that much more about the student. The campus is much more cooperative than other ivies meaning strong social skills are wicked important to success.</p>
<p>Its true. It is very hard to change one’s style of writing.
I was asked by two of my friends, also applying to Dartmouth, to write a peer eval for them. After completing both - they sounded the same. Problem was, both of them had quite similar achievements and thus the two seemed to be quite exact replicas. Fearing that, in the process, both would lose out as neither was unique - we decided that someone else write the second peer eval!! 
Now this ^ is different from the problem mentioned but what I meant to say is that you can’t change your writing style & I bet experienced Adcoms at Dartmouth can catch a fake peer eval!!</p>
<p>That said, I feel it is perfectly fine if the applicant asks his/her friend to put in some facts that he/she would like the admissions officers to know about!! :)</p>
<p>Do you get to see your peer evaluation before it is sent?</p>
<p>Is Dartmouth the only school that does peer evaluations?</p>
<p>How many do you have to send to Dartmouth?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>^ Yes, you can do whatever you want with it (the whole point this thread is contending about).
Few other schools require it.
And you send 1 peer eval.</p>
<p>Going by your username, Ivyleague2020 - too soon don’t you think??</p>
<p>Haha it is but I’m just planning ahead!</p>
<p>I love that Dartmouth does peer evals. It’s actually the reason I decided to apply. I think a friend’s voice can mean just as much as a teacher’s - it’s written from a different perspective and exposes characteristics of the applicant that might not otherwise be visible from the rest of the application. Cheating is going to happen, but that’s true in just about every other section of the college app.</p>
<p>I’m a big fan of peer evaluations as well.
It’s another way to breathe life in the cold college application process!</p>
<p>I’d like to add a different perspective to this discussion-</p>
<p>What if you are an international student, and all through your schooling you have had almost all your friends leave to go to a different country/school and you move schools too? I find it difficult really forming any sort of relationship with people knowing that they could be leaving the next year, or that I will be. Also, I find that the smaller the class size/school size, the less likely it is to find someone you connect well with and enjoy spending time with.</p>
<p>I ended up getting this one friend of mine who had been at school with me for about 2-3 years, really enjoys sports (as much as I do and the same ones; swimming, kite surfing, diving, volleyball etc), same academic interests and I suppose one of my closest friends? But I haven’t seen here often for the past two years (maybe once every 6 months maybe) and her english is not great as she is German (but it is still passable and mostly grammatically correct 
) </p>
<p>I just found it really difficult to find someone who I felt could give me a good peer review, well out of the people I lived with in boarding for my past two years. Various problems with them (usually involving noise and lack of following the house rules as well as those rules not being enforced) - Oh Well!</p>
<p>^ Well, that is an unique case but there are still other options! A peer evaluation need not be from a school friend only, it can be from a sibling too or a friend in your hometown!</p>
<p>Also, it is/would be perfectly fine for you to get a peer eval done from the friend you mentioned since he/she has been with you for 2-3 years cause in that time he/she would’ve got to know you personally!! </p>
<p>I believe, even if you’ve known a person for a year or two, that person will give a true representation of your skills,likes & dislikes - only thing missing would probably be experiences!!</p>
<p>Even I got my peer evaluation done by a friend whom I’ve known for only 2 years(from my new school), even though I could have easily asked my friends from my old school to write it for me! The fact that you find it <em>Difficult</em> to socialize/make friends -is not Dartmouth’s problem!! :)</p>
<p>^^If that situation, where people are coming and going in and out of your life because of school and schedule, makes it hard for you to form close relationships, I’d actually caution you to think very carefully about whether you’ll be happy at Dartmouth. The D Plan honestly is one of my favorite parts of the school, but it does come with its own unique challenges. It can be hard, when you’re off winter, a friend is off spring, and then you’re both interning over the summer, for example, and then next thing you know its senior fall and you haven’t seen each other since junior fall. To be happy and maintain friendships, its important to be able to deal with phone calls, skype sessions, email, and post cards as a primary means of communication over a long period of time, with maybe visits if you’re lucky. It’s pretty important at Dartmouth to be able to maintain friendships even if you don’t see each other for six months to a year at a time. And lots of people do it, and do fine maintaining close friendships over separations If that’s an aspect of high school you’ve found challenging though, I’d think really carefully about whether that part of life at Dartmouth is something you can deal with.</p>
<p>Maybe I’m reading too much into your post and that’s something you’re fine with, but it pretty immediately set off some red flags for me in terms of the D Plan.</p>
<p>^ True!!</p>
<p>Plus you’ll be there for four years and if 2-3 years is not enough for a meaningful friendship, then I doubt 4 would do the trick for you!! Just some food for thought!! :)</p>
<p>I get where you are coming from. I believe that I am possibly getting better, but I am much more cautious as from my experiences I haven’t been able to stay in touch with many of my old friends over the years (luckily a few of them are like me and don’t require constant contact to keep the friendship) ← which is one of the reasons I think Dartmouth could be a good fit, as I might not usually form strong friendships, but if them, or myself going away doesn’t affect the relationship when we meet up a couple months from then, then I hope I should be fine.
I tend to be mixed between being introverted and extroverted… and having grown up with unstable friendships (up until high school mostly anyway - only about 6 people from my prep school came to my high school) has actually effected my understanding of friendships etc… Though I do have a couple really close friends, who I don’t see often, but have the chance to talk to often.</p>
<p>I didn’t want to get my sister (my only sibling) to do my peer review as we haven’t really lived together for the past 8 years. I barely see my cousins or talk to them, and my swimming team mates that know me only know me in the context of swimming and are french (ie, broken english writing which I doubt could be good for any application no matter how praising or insightful)</p>
<p>But thanks, I understand where you were coming from and it was one of my worries (though I have also learnt how to cope very well and happily without being surrounded by many friends - that sounds pretty sad? hahaha! ). We will see how things go. Thanks for the insight there though.</p>
<p>^ Your case is quite unique!! People at Dartmouth would have obviously not thought of someone in such a situation!! So you can’t really help it! I’d suggest you get your peer evaluations done, if you haven’t already?, by one of your 2 close friends, since they would probably know the most about you. Also you could tell them to put in stuff that you want the adcoms to know about!! :)</p>
<p>Also - your location says South Arican - that should either be South America or South Africa, right?</p>