Hello! Just posting this thread for anyone that has updates on Dartmouth Likely Letters
Please post on here when if you receive one, apparently Dartmouth releases about 500 in 3 waves starting mid February
Do you have a source for thisā¦it seems high. Just to do some calculationsā¦last year (class of 2022) about 1,360 students were admitted RD, so 500 likely letters would mean about 37% of those accepted received an LL, which wouldnāt make sense.
@Mwfan1921 what would a typical amount be, I know Stanford sends 10%,
I donāt know for Dartmouth, but I do know that HY plus Penn and Brown send about 100 (I think Penn, with the larger class size, is closer to 200) in the RD round to non-athletic recruits. I would imagine that Dartmouth is close to that.
Whatever the number, the vast majority of accepted applicants do not get a LL. So please be more productive with your time than constantly refreshing your email in the hope that one arrives.
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Not sure there is a ātypicalā amount of likely letters among schools that send them. I havenāt heard the Stanford 10% number, but could be. This is an old article citing a 1% LL rate (of total applicants) at Stanford: https://www.stanforddaily.com/2010/03/29/some-applicants-told-of-likely-admission/
Generally in ED/REA/SCEA a significant proportion of likely letters go to athletes. Some committed athletes still come through in RD as well, and schools may also send LLs to highly desirable non-athlete applicantsā¦basically as a marketing tool as an incentive to get them to attend. I expect the number of LLs sent varies from school to school, and from year to year.
Another exampleā¦William and Mary sends likely, or early write, postcards to about 25% of RD applicants: https://wmblogs.wm.edu/admiss/whats-deal-wm-postcard/
There are a number of schools that send out likely letters, early writes (the Ivies, Amherst, Williams, UChicago)
Op is correct that Dartmouth sends out approximately 500 likely letters in 3 waves starting in mid-February. In our experience (which has been many years ago), they come via snail mail.
I agree with @skieurope that the majority of students admitted RD will not receive one. While I am grateful that my D did receive one in mid February during her admissions cycle, the process also causes more angst than it alleviates.
Wow I had no idea. I assumed only athletes got them. Iām not telling S19 about this but Iāll be checking Informed Mail with more curiosity now!
My daughter got one from Stanford in early Feb, and at least one other applicant reported on this forum getting one earlier this week, also from Stanford.
I will note that the LL from Stanford this year actually says it is an early notification of an offer of admission, rather than the typical hinting that she is likely to get an offer. I recall seeing online Stanford LLs from previous years that read like the typical LL, but saw one of these from last year that read like the one my kid got, so I guess Stanford has found the more direct approach to be successful. Or perhaps Stanford uses these and LLs, dependingāwho knows.
Also a classmate of hers got a LL from Columbia recently.
Itās hard to say how many of these really go out to non-recruited athletes, but each university is free to use as many as they want to try to woo students. Very curious!
Speaking from the perspective of a parent who had no idea back then that likely letters existed and whose also-unaware daughter came to him lo these many years ago [2009] with a āDad, is this real?ā question, I have to say that it made that spring very relaxing, but waiting and hoping for one if you know they are a thing is, as others have pointed out year after year after year, not a good use of oneās time or energy. Honestly, if we had known they existed, we would not have expected one. D was not a legacy, not an athlete: just another smart kid with excellent grades and test scores. Also a national debater but she would have been the first to acknowledge that there were a lot of others ahead of her in her discipline. Great essays, great recommendations [including a very candid peer], but what made her a likely [the letter actually said something more like āthere is no question that you will be offered a placeā] we will never know.
Does anyone know if ED applicants, who were deferred, have received LLs???
I have never heard of it happening, although never say never. That said, it seems counterintuitive to me that a deferred applicant would ever receive a LL.
IMO, LLās are received by 10-20% of the admitted apps. So for Dartmouth, from about 1400 admits, thats 140-280 apps, which makes sense.
This doesnt include ED and ED deferred apps as they never get a LL. But im still talking overall rates. So for RDās the number jumps a bit.
Im speculating 10-20% but it HAS to be lesser. in context of RD apps, and Dartmouth small class size, it seems too high to me, and to many for sure.