As a recruited athlete, if you apply EA to an Ivy school for the admissions likely letter review and get rejected, can you apply EA to another school for their admissions likely letter review?
I hope you have not been confused by some of the comments about likely letters here.
Are these the facts:
You have been told by an Ivy coach after an academic pre-read that you have a slot and that you should apply SCEA. Everything is going fine at Admissions but for one reason or another they do not exercise their discretion to send a Likely Letter. At some point between October 1 (the first day a LL may be issued) and the SCEA decision date in mid-December, you want to withdraw the application and apply Early to another school.
SCEA rules (you can easily Google this) say if you apply SCEA you may not apply to an Early program at another private college. I suppose you would be able to withdraw one application and file another before the application deadline of Nov 1.
But why would you want to do this just because you haven’t received a Likely Letter before Nov 1? A recruited athlete on the list of slotted applicants sent to admissions is just as solid whether or not they get a LL in the mail.
http://www.tier1athletics.org/blug/
If there are other facts, please post up
I think you have it correct! Student has two promised spots and associated offers for LL. He will apply EA to first choice Ivy. If he is somehow unlikely rejected, he will withdraw application and submit EA to second back-up Ivy. I never thought about the withdrawal option so should be fine! Thanks for the wisdom!
I hope you did not misread or misunderstand.
You will not know if he is rejected prior to the SCEA application deadline of Nov 1. If he has been promised a slot after a pre-read, but there is no likely letter by Nov 1, he is still in a solid position. That does not mean he has been rejected.
If he really is rejected (chances of being deferred are greater than rejection–which are both a lot less than likelihood for acceptance in this case) you won’t know until mid-December, which is after the application deadline for SCEA.
The coach said he will be notified of admission the day after the admissions meeting in mid October. Then, if it’s unfavorable and you and I are correct, he will have enough time to withdraw and submit to a second school. We are keeping all the other offers (Ivy and non-Ivy) open until a likely letter is offered.
There are two different things here. There is the admission committee meeting to determine whether to issue the likely letter, which is what the OP is talking about, and the EA decision date, which is what @fenwaypark is talking about.
@schoolhouserock, what you are describing is my understanding of the common procedure. The coach has told your child he is being supported for a likely letter, and the date the committee will meet to determine whether to issue such. That is the way it worked for my son and every other recruit I personally know.
If the committee informs your child that they will not issue a letter, I strongly disagree that your child will still be in a “good position” for admission. In fact, a decision not to issue a letter under the circumstances you outline should be treated as a rejection from admissions. I would urge you in that unfortunate circumstance to withdraw the EA app immediately and move down the list to the next school.
Before this thread spirals out of control, I would suggest that if this is at all confusing to you or your child, have a frank discussion with the recruiting coach as to what it means if admissions decides not to issue a likely letter.
Agree. Coach feels very confident in letter being issued. I just wanted to make sure there was the option to move on to a second EA if it didn’t go that route. Absolutely we will withdraw and move to choice two if a letter is not issued after that meeting. Thanks for everyone’s help! I just wasn’t sure if you could withdraw after submitting an EA app and after given a decision. I assume you can withdraw as long as it’s before the November 1 deadline regardless how far the first app went through the process.
Btw, second school said to submit app RD then change to EA after likely letter issued but first school needed EA app before likely letter issued. Just didn’t want to get locked out of second school if first school EA app went south!
Sounds like your second school is where my son is. That is the procedure they set out for him last year. He ended up getting his letter, but stayed in the RD pool, which really didn’t make a bit of difference. I know this is a nervous time, but it is almost done and then you can sit back and relax. I would just keep the lines of communication open at both schools until your child gets the call.
Yes! All lines are open including three D1 scholarships. It is a dance for sure! Thank you all again!
Then you should do this. No problem applying SCEA to one school and RD to another.
By the way, it really sounds that you are in a very solid position.
I don’t think it will get to this, but I believe it would be very interesting for the forum to know if an Ivy SCEA school (H,Y,or P) offered a slot after a positive academic pre-read and then did not come through with an acceptance. Will you let us know? If you are comfortable disclosing, are we talking about football?
I know personally of two who supposedly passed a pre read but then were rejected for a likely letter. One at an EA school and one at an ED school. One football, one basketball. The kid who was rejected from the EA school ended up going to an ED school and just graduated a year or two ago. It is of course unknowable if the coach at the last minute decided not to support the kid and then blamed it on admissions, or if the pre read was maybe not as positive as the kid chose to believe. I have heard of several others over the last five years or so, and if you look, you will find an article or two in a local paper where a kid says he was told admissions had passed on his academics but then round about November he is told that a likely letter will not be issued. It was an article of faith for years that Penn was scooping football players who were being rejected by H, Y or P, and that is why they were so dominant in the 90s and early 2000s.
It happens more than you think in the revenue sports, assumedly at the lower end of the AI bands. Certain schools in fact have a reputation for admissions every once in awhile pulling the plug, maybe because there is a disconnect between the person doing the pre read and the person/committee reviewing the likely letter. Maybe because something came out in the essays or the recommendations. Maybe because the preread was somewhat conditional, “keep getting your grades up”, or “improve on the SAT”, something like that. I think this is where a coach’s level of experience really helps, because he has the opportunity to give the kid some specific targets to shoot for, based on what comes back on the pre read. But I think it is very safe to say that the closer you are to the AI floor, the more at risk you are.
That’s a good question about how common it is in the Ivies for a recruit to get a pre-read positive enough to get an official visit, get unambiguous support by the team, and then not get admitted.
I don’t have hard data on this, but my sense has been that it’s unusual but certainly possible as there are things admissions doesn’t look at in the pre-read that could go wrong in the application - essays, recommendations, and SAT IIs taken after the pre-read seem like the main ones.
I would think it if happens too often, then coaches may start to have some trouble recruiting, especially in sports (such as volleyball) with strong club systems where coaches at the top clubs have recruitable athletes every year, and will definitely notice if a particular college does this too often.
There was a Pac 12 basketball coach a while back who got fired, and one of the causes was said to be a recruit where he pulled a scholarship offer late in the game, after the student had declined other good offers. So then AAU coaches started telling their players the coach couldn’t be trusted, and all of a sudden he had a hard time getting good recruits.
I know that’s Pac 12 and scholarships, not the Ivies and Likely Letters, but I would think the same basic idea applies.
Well, if I were an Ivy coach who found an athlete I thought could help my team win, then sent the recruit’s academic credentials to Admissions for a pre-read, and Admissions said the recruit satisfied relevant academic criteria for my team, and I used one of my precious slots for that recruit–which was allocated to me as a result of Admissions Office policy and negotiations with the Athletic Director…only to have Admissions reject the recruit…I think I might start looking for work elsewhere.
No decent coach is going to be working in an environment where things like this happen, except in extremely unusual circumstances, I think.
Parents and recruits: You still need to conduct good risk management like @Schoolhouserock is. I am trying to give you my best understanding of what happens in the vast majority of cases, not what happens in the rare exceptions.
I don’t know for sure, but I would be amazed if a team lost a slot because admissions decided not to issue the letter.
I know of a case where a P recruit did not get a promised LL but was quickly scooped by another Ivy. Some Ivy coaches hold a spot until the last moment in case a prized recruit falls into their lap. As they say it is not who you recruit but who you do not recruit.
@Schoolhouserock @Ohiodad51 @fenwaypark I know this thread has to do with Ivy League, but to what extent does it carry over to other D1s or even D3? When is the window for likely letters? For Early? For Regular? Does it differ based on Ivy status?
Any experience with admissions meeting being pushed back? I am of course in panic mode since s meeting now delayed. Does this mean the coach is waiting on a better recruit or does it mean the meeting was just actually changed? Thoughts?
@Schoolhouserock, I feel your pain. Last year the review dates for my son and his new teammates’ likely letters got pushed back I believe three times. I assumed then and do know that it is a decision of the admissions office rather than the coach to push the meeting, Maybe not all the recruits they plan on reviewing have their complete app in, maybe someone went on vacation. No way really to know. Just keep in touch with your coach. It sucks right now, but it will get done.