I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining, but I have not received a LL from any of the colleges to which I have applied. I know only a select few applicants are going to get one, but how many in total? I don’t know, I just wish the system was more egalitarian. If you’re going to tell someone they got into college XYZ early, just tell everyone else. That’s how I feel.
I just hate the fact that I have to wait in agony while some people can relax and know that they’ve been admitted to their dream school. I guess I am a bit jealous. I feel kind of inadequate.
Are likely letters fair? No. But, so are so many other aspects of the admissions process. Clarence Thomas, the only African American on the Supreme Court, wants to make the admissions process more egalitarian and do away with special treatment for URM’s. He feels that’s unfair. Do you agree?
Here’s the deal: The vast majority of likely letters go to recruited athletes. You are not a recruited athlete. Some likely letters go to star academic students – the kind of student that would be snapped up in the SCEA round, such as an Intel Finalist. Are you one of those students?
Looking over your chance thread, you do not have the credentials to receive a likely letter. You are an African American female with 4.0 and 2100 SAT who is a published literary author and a quiz bowl champ. That’s wonderful. Yes, it’s ivy league material, but it’s not extraordinary. This is the kind of student who gets an academic likely letter.: http://www.fastcoexist.com/1681325/what-happens-to-genius-kids-after-they-win-the-google-science-fair.
Now, honestly, does that sound like you?
I understand the pain of having to wait, but you need to channel your energy into something more productive for the next month. Best of luck to you!
Well, tip-top colleges are not egalitarian, they are meritocracies. There will always be people smarter, wealthier and more athletic than you, and you will have to accept that to be happy in life.
Unless you were a recruited athlete or super-amazing, you will have to wait for decisions like the majority of students. Happily, once you get to college, you have the chance to chase your dreams and the chance to be amazing. If you concentrate on your life plan rather than worry about how others are doing, you will go far.
You will also see that some of the likely letter recipients will wilt once they are in an environment of all high-achievers. Some will be homesick, others will fall to alcohol, drugs, video game addiction, procrastination, or lack of discipline.
Waiting for your results is painful. Try to find a positive outlet to fill your time: send your grandma a letter, help out at a shelter, go for a run or sort your closet for donations. Your life will be great next year wherever you go.
Fair? It’s a schoolyard choosing of the two kickball teams.
One of the reasons you desire to attend Harvard is due to fantastic fellow students. Why not let Harvard (and others) use tools to attain that? Your question assumes your sense of egalitarianism overrides H admission’s job? That would be silly.
I think it’s in the students’ and schools’ best interests for everyone to get likely letters, as soon as it’s clear that students will be admitted. For students, it’s a huge advantage—it gives them more time to contemplate their options and make economical travel arrangements to admitted-students programs. For schools, it dramatically increases the odds that the admitted students will matriculate. As the parent of a student who was accepted early at another school, I can see that the more time goes by with my son envisioning himself at that school and becoming increasingly emotionally invested in it, the less likely it is he’ll accept any other forthcoming offers. If I were an admissions director, I’d send each student a likely letter as soon as I knew the student would be admitted. By not doing this, schools are forgoing a major yield advantage.
^^ In a utopian admissions world, that would be the ideal, however the reality is that Harvard (and other colleges) are only able to make a quick judgement-call on a few hundred academically stellar students: http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/harvarddean-part3/
Those are the students that get likely letters – the students who’s credentials are far superior to everyone else that they don’t need the approval of the full committee. For the majority of applicants though, it seems like the committee needs to have more of a discussion in terms of how individuals actually fit in to the mosaic of the class that is being created.
I think the process is designed to provide folks a final admissions decision as soon as is possible given the constraints of resources, and the desire to run the process in an orderly, error-free manner.
I don’t think the final status of most competitive applicants is determined until late in the game. Folks who receive academic likely-letters are the exceptions, not the rule. They’re the kids who are going to get in no matter how strong the applicant pool. The rest of the competitive pool is competing against other students, and decisions concerning these students are interrelated and contingent on each other.
OP: now that you’ve been given some explanation of why the LLs exist, the sort of advantages to both the schools and the recipients – do you still maintain that they are "unfair?
I get that it’d be wonderful to receive one (or several) but it just doesn’t work that way.
I don’t see how likely letters are unfair , really. If you get accepted, you start classes at the same time and get the same degree in the end. Not all students attend their “likely letter” schools, too. They wait for all their acceptance and aid packages just like you do. An acceptance is an acceptance, no matter when it arrives. It is just a marketing tool for the college to try to impress their top or most desired applicants to try to improve their yield with that group.
It’s not like a “save the date” card, letting you and all the other guests know an invite is coming. It’s a special pat on the head. And yes, the kids they most hope will matriculate, for one reason or another.
“My question to them was why their kid didn’t apply to an EA/ED program”
My daughter did not apply to any ED programs because they are binding before financial aid is determined. She did not apply to any EA because they were restrictive as to where else she could apply early, and the fact that she is taking 7 AP courses this year she was plenty busy. Also, her volunteer inner-city tutoring program expansion was just getting off the ground and she felt this was much more important to her than completing college applications early. She knew how much time she would need to complete each essay, etc., and she planned her time according to those deadlines. To me, this was an intelligent decision/strategy as it was good for her personal situation. Her high school GC asked if she was applying early anywhere, but when D explained her reasons, he said “Of course, that makes perfect sense coming from you”.
She got her likely letters from Yale, Brown, Cornell, Wellesley and Smith and awaits a regular decision letters from Harvard and Stanford, Amherst and Williams. While she is a little nervous/anxious about this process, she is still plenty busy so she says doesn’t really have time to worry about what she can’t control - cross that bridge when she comes to it.
@3puppies It sounds like your daughter might still get likely letters from Harvard, Stanford, and the others (if they send them). My understanding is that likely letters can go out in waves, even into March.
Let me suggest that 3puppies and her pup exercise a little bit of discretion about all the nervousness and anxiety they feel with pup having received likely letters only from Yale, Brown, Cornell, Wellesley, and Smith, and not from some of the other similarly impressive colleges to which she applied. Most applicants to such colleges – including the OP of this thread – haven’t gotten likely letters from anyone, and have so far only received deferrals or rejections from fancy-pants colleges. It raises their level of nervousness and anxiety a lot to hear about other kids who are receiving what amount to early acceptances at the same colleges to which they are applying, and they are not going to be very sympathetic about how painful it is not to have run the table in February.