Why the Common App Rating Grid Often Decides Whether Your Letter Gets Read—and How Strong Recommendations Can Set You Apart in an Ultra-Competitive Pool
In the high-stakes world of BS/MD admissions, acceptance rates at the most selective programs frequently fall into the single digits or low double digits. Students targeting direct-entry programs at institutions such as Brown University (PLME), Penn State/Sidney Kimmel, Rutgers/New Jersey Medical School, VCU, UMKC, or similar accelerated tracks face a daunting reality: hundreds of extraordinarily qualified applicants compete for a relatively small number of spots each year.
Your GPA, SAT or ACT scores, course rigor, clinical hours, research experience, and leadership activities are non-negotiable table stakes. They earn your application a serious look. But once you’re in the “highly qualified” pile—and virtually every serious BS/MD candidate is in that pile—what actually moves the needle?
In my experience evaluating hundreds of applications in that pile as a BS/MD program director, one of the most powerful—yet frequently underestimated—factors is the quality of your teacher recommendations. More specifically, for those programs that utilize the Common App—examples of which include Brown, RPI, NJIT, Drexel, and many others—the Common App Teacher Evaluation rating grid often functions as a gatekeeper that determines whether admissions officers even invest time in reading the actual letter of recommendation.
If you are unsure what I am referring to, you are likely not alone. Many applicants and parents are unaware that a teacher must complete the Common App Teacher Evaluation (TE) form/cover sheet when uploading their letter of recommendation to the Common App portal. This requirement remains the same, even if the teacher utilizes a third-party software provided by their school, including Naviance, SchoolLinks, and many others. The TE form collects some basic info before asking the teacher to rate the applicant—relative to the other students in the class. You can find a full explanation of this rating grade below, and you can review a PDF of the actual TE form here.
When Nearly Every Competitive Applicant Looks Identical on Paper…
This is the central challenge of BS/MD admissions. The most competitive applicants routinely have remarkably similar profiles and resumes:
- Unweighted GPAs of 3.90–4.0 (or higher with weighting)
- SAT scores of 1520–1600 or ACT scores of 34–36
- Heavy loads of AP/IB/Honors STEM coursework, often with 5s on multiple AP exams
- 200–600+ hours of clinical volunteering, shadowing, or paid healthcare roles
- Research experience that may include posters, presentations, or co-authorship
- Leadership in HOSA, science clubs, community health initiatives, or related organizations
- A strong “Why Medicine” story arc derived from extracurricular activities and life events.
Having personally reviewed and evaluated thousands of BS/MD applications since 2014, I feel like I have seen it all: Olympic-qualifying athletes, issued patent holders, publications in top journals like Science, Nature, and even the New England Journal of Medicine, etc. Therefore, I am quite confident when I say that the admissions committees at these programs have also seen it all. They know how to spot coached essays and padded activity descriptions. What they crave—and what is genuinely difficult to manufacture—is authentic, third-party evidence of intellectual vitality, character, resilience, curiosity, and the interpersonal qualities that predict success in medicine.
The teacher recommendations are probably the only application component that can credibly provide this testimony. A generic letter that simply restates your grades and activities adds little value. A vivid, specific, and enthusiastic letter that places you in the top tier of students the teacher has encountered over many years can be transformative.
The Common App Rating Grid: The Gatekeeper Admissions Officers Check First
Before an admissions officer or committee member ever opens the full recommendation letter and invests the time to actually read it, they scan the standardized rating grid that every Common App teacher recommender completes. This is not a minor administrative step—it is a high-signal screening device used by busy admissions offices handling thousands of applications.
When I would sit down to review applications as a BS/MD program director, I would give myself a defined amount of time to get through a certain number of applications. Reviewing something like 75-100 applications over the course of an 8-hour workday can be tedious, monotonous work at times, especially when you have to keep the specifics of each applicant separate in your head. Put yourself in the mind of an admissions officer: if there was a way to save time without sacrificing the overall quality of your review, wouldn’t you take it? Enter the rating grid on the Common App Teacher Evaluation (TE) form…
The TE form asks recommenders to rate students across approximately 15 categories, including:
- Academic Achievement
- Intellectual Promise
- Quality of Writing
- Creative Thought
- Productive Discussion (classroom contributions)
- Faculty Respect
- Disciplined Habits (work habits)
- Maturity
- Motivation
- Leadership
- Integrity
- Reaction to Setbacks (resilience)
- Concern for Others (empathy/collaboration)
- Self-Confidence
- Initiative
- Overall assessment
The rating scale typically includes: No Basis, Below Average, Average, Good (above average), Very Good (well above average), Excellent (top 10%), and Outstanding (top 5%).
Here is the practical reality I have observed repeatedly: If the ratings are not consistently strong—especially “Excellent” or “Outstanding” in the core academic, intellectual, motivation, and overall categories—the accompanying letter of recommendation will not be strong. In such an instance, why even read the full letter? For that matter, why not save a few minutes by putting the application in the “reject” pile at this point, given that there are dozens of other applicants with really strong letters? I know many admissions committees that take this approach when reviewing applications, which is why this rating grid is SO incredibly important.
It is important to understand that at highly selective colleges and BS/MD programs, admissions staff use the quick quantitative signals provided by the TE form to triage files. A pattern of mostly “Good” or “Very Good” ratings, even with a polite narrative, can signal to an overworked reviewer that the student is solid but not truly exceptional relative to the recommender’s experience. The file may receive only a quick scan or be deprioritized for interview consideration.
Conversely, a grid dominated by “Outstanding (top 5%)” and “Excellent (top 10%)” ratings—particularly when paired with specific, glowing commentary—functions as a powerful green light. It tells the committee: “This student stood out dramatically even among the strongest applicants I have taught.” That signal often earns the full letter (and the rest of the application) far more careful attention.
For BS/MD programs, which evaluate candidates for both undergraduate and future medical school success, these ratings carry additional weight. They provide early evidence of the discipline, intellectual curiosity, resilience under pressure, and concern for others that medical schools later assess through interviews and holistic review.
What Makes a Recommendation Letter Truly Effective
Strong letters share several hallmarks:
- Specific anecdotes over generic praise. “She is a hard worker and good student” is weak. “During our independent research project on CRISPR gene editing, she independently designed follow-up experiments after initial results were inconclusive, presented her findings at the regional science fair, and mentored two younger students through the process” is powerful. It demonstrates initiative, resilience, leadership, and genuine scientific curiosity.
- Comparative context. Phrases such as “one of the top three students I have taught in twenty years,” “consistently in the top 5% of my most rigorous classes,” or “stands out even among students who later attended Ivy League medical schools” carry enormous weight.
- Evidence of growth and character. The best letters address how a student responded to challenges, collaborated with peers, showed empathy in classroom or lab settings, or demonstrated intellectual risk-taking—qualities essential for future physicians.
- Alignment with medicine. While not every teacher letter needs to explicitly discuss a medical career, the strongest ones for BS/MD applicants subtly or directly affirm traits (intellectual rigor combined with humanistic qualities) that predict success in patient-centered fields.
How to Secure Outstanding Recommendations
Exceptional recommendations are built, not requested at the last minute. Here is the approach I recommend to families:
- Start relationship-building early. Cultivate genuine connections with teachers during sophomore and junior years. Participate actively in class, visit during office hours with thoughtful questions, pursue independent projects or extensions of coursework, and demonstrate consistent intellectual engagement.
- Choose recommenders strategically. For BS/MD applicants, teachers of rigorous junior-year science or math courses who have seen you in high-level academic settings can be great recommenders. However, so can teachers in other subjects, so don’t restrict yourself to only STEM teachers. In the end, it is MUCH better to have a truly exceptional letter from your history, economics, or even music teacher than it is to have a decent/generic letter from your AP Biology or AP Chemistry teacher! As a general rule of thumb, consider asking two STEM teachers and two humanities or elective teachers who can speak to well-rounded qualities, leadership, or character. It is important to ask approximately four teachers for letters because some BS/MD programs ask for more than the standard two letters of recommendation. Avoid teachers who only know you from a large lecture-style class or a single semester with limited interaction.
- Provide comprehensive support materials. Generally, the recommender is going to tell you precisely what they need from you in order to write the letter. However, if they don’t, I recommend providing a detailed packet that includes:
- Your current resume or activities list with context and impact metrics
- A “brag sheet” with 4–6 specific stories or examples you hope they will highlight (include challenges overcome and what you learned)
- A short note about why you are asking them specifically and what qualities you believe they have observed
- Clear deadlines and a list of schools/programs (with any special notes)
- Ask early and respectfully. Initiate the request in late spring of junior year or early summer before senior year. This is really important because BS/MD applications are generally due pretty early (~November). As the absolute bare minimum, give teachers at least four weeks of notice before the letters are due, but ideally more. If you wait until there is only a few weeks until the deadlines, don’t be surprised if your teacher declines to write the letter. As the application deadlines approach, follow up politely with each teacher to ensure that there is no issue with submitting the letter by the deadline. As a program director, there was nothing more heartbreaking for me than when I was forced to reject an otherwise great application for being incomplete because a letter of recommendation was missing.
- Focus on asking those teachers who you believe will provide you with the strongest ratings. There is a bit of strategy that you MAY want to consider…First off, the TE form specifically instructs teachers to base the ratings on a comparison with the rest of the students in the class. The teacher of a tough class full of the best students in your school will likely provide different ratings than the teacher of an easier–maybe even non-AP/honors–class in which your classmates were of various abilities. I’m not necessarily saying that you should ask the teachers of your easiest courses for letters, but the strength of your classmates should at least be considered. Next, while you may have a great relationship with your music teacher and believe that they will write a strong letter, do they really have a basis to rate your Quality of Writing, Creative Thought, Productive Discussion, etc.? A rating grid in which the teacher indicates “no basis” for multiple qualities or characteristics can look almost as bad as an outright negative rating grid–so think long and hard before asking your gym teacher for a recommendation. 🙂
- Waive your FERPA rights. This signals confidence in your recommenders and is standard practice for serious applicants.
- Express genuine gratitude. Send a handwritten thank-you note immediately after they submit. Later, update them on your outcomes—they invested time in your future and deserve to know the results.
The Bottom Line
In a BS/MD admissions landscape where quantitative credentials and activities are increasingly similar across the strongest applicants, teacher recommendations remain one of the most authentic and high-impact ways to differentiate yourself. The Common App rating grid serves as the first filter; when it signals exceptional performance, it opens the door for the full letter—and your entire application—to receive the careful consideration it deserves.
Strong, specific, and strategically supported recommendations do more than check a box. They humanize your file, provide credible comparative judgments, and affirm the character and intellectual qualities that predict success not only in college but in the demanding, service-oriented profession of medicine.
If you are a high school student or parent preparing for the BS/MD or top undergraduate admissions journey and want expert, personalized guidance on every element of the application—including strategic recommendation planning, essay development, interview preparation, and profile strengthening—Archimedes Advising is here to help.
Our approach is built on deep experience with highly selective BS/MD and pre-medical pathways. We have helped students achieve acceptances at programs including Brown PLME, Penn State/Sidney Kimmel, Pitt GAP, Rutgers/New Jersey Medical School, and many others.
Schedule your free consultation today at archimedes-advising.com/contact-us. Let’s build an application strategy that makes your strengths impossible to overlook.
Archimedes Advising specializes in admissions consulting for BS/MD, BS/DO, and highly selective pre-medical undergraduate programs. Our clients benefit from insider knowledge of what truly moves the needle in holistic review.