I received a (non-athletic) likely letter from Columbia today and was wondering if I could extrapolate from it anything regarding my chances at Brown, UPenn, and Princeton (SCEA, deferred). Thank you in advance!
Its not guaranteed, but you certainly have better odds than others. Good luck
I wouldn’t extrapolate, and there is no reason to do that anyways. All colleges are looking for something different. For example, I got deferred ED from Penn (and I have legacy), while I was accepted EA to UChicago with no hooks (and I didn’t even request an interview). I would just wait and see what happens. Congrats on the likely letter. This should reassurance that you have a good application. Enjoy it. Don’t look too far into it.
Congratulations on your likely letter! What it means is this:
- You are pretty much assured admission at one of the best schools in the country. Hopefully you can relax a bit now.
- Your application was strong - strong enough to differentiate yourself from the tens of thousands of other qualified applicants at Columbia. Does that assure acceptance elsewhere? No. But if Columbia was that impressed with you, you, it probably increases the chances that your application will stand out for other schools, too. As @paul2752 notes, "you certainly have better odds than others".
The ivies use the likely letter for non-athletes for the top students. They are using this as a means to improve their yield. Congrats. This means that Columbia feels that you will likely receive offers elsewhere. So this is the reason to entice you by waving a likely letter.
But “top students” can mean various things to different colleges. The LL means Columbia likes your app.
Congratulations. Is it Columbia college or Engineering?
I know someone from a few years ago who got a likely from Columbia but was waitlisted by Brown and Penn and rejected by Princeton, all for RD. Different schools view your app differently and each school is asking you to write different essays based on how they evaluate. So although your commonapp level material is same, each school is evaluating you on their own scale.
agreeing with @texaspg. Pretty much all of the students that I know who are currently at tippy top schools were turned down by at least one other of the tippy top schools (and some a little less than tippy top as well). It means you are competitive- but you already knew that!
FWIW, D got a likely from Dartmouth, was accepted at Harvard, and was rejected (not even wait list) by Yale. I don’t think it tells you much of anything as far as the other schools are concerned.
@jarrett211 wrote:
Do they let you apply EA to UChicago and simultaneously ED to UPenn? How does that work? I thought ED applications are exclusive.
You can apply ED to one college AND EA to others.