Hi everyone! I am looking to be a part of one of Harvard’s D1 sports, but if I am not good enough to be a recruit, how much will a coach’s letter to admissions help me? I have a very high academic index (4.0 UW, 34 ACT, high SAT II’s, etc.). Just wondering if it is worth trying if I am only going to get rejected. It really is my first choice school.
Recruited and offered a likely letter = nearly certain acceptance. Recruited, but don’t make the cut for one of the coach’s allotted slots, or recruited for a sport that doesn’t have any slots? The coach’s letter to admissions certainly won’t hurt, but is no guarantee of acceptance. Plenty of kids get accepted with 34/4.0, far more are rejected. Apply and hope for the best.
It might be helpful to post in the CC athletic recruits forum http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/athletic-recruits/ where there may be some folks with more specific knowledge relevant to your question.
Are you certain that the coach will not offer you a slot, or is this just a hypothetical question? And are you now a junior or a senior? If you are an elite highly ranked athlete, especially with a very high AI, you certainly will be on the coach’s wish list to be one of their slotted athlete. If you are a senior, you may be a bit late in the recruitment process, since the Likely Letter meetings have just begun and all the slots may have already been filled. If you are a junior, and have the academic and athletic stats to “show off” to the coach, then now would be the best time to approach the coach to put yourself on their radar. In my son’s sport, he had an unofficial visit with the coach late in the fall of his junior year and was given a verbal commitment for a likely letter recruitment immediately following the meeting. Later we found out that other equally qualified athletes who approached the coach late in spring were told that the slots were already filled and he was no longer looking.
Hard to decipher your question. If you are not officially offered a recruit spot, I do know that Harvard coaches will write support letters for athletes they like but who missed the cut for a slot. How much influence that has probably depends on the coach/sport and his/her relationship with the AO. It certainly won’t hurt, but don’t count it as a major factor in your favor. I doubt that your AI is a separate consideration. I believe the AI calculation for sports (the rules pertaining to the AI of recruited athletes relative to the general student body) only applies to recruited athletes, not walk-ons. Otherwise, a coach would not have to use a high AI recruit to offset a low AI recruit (which undoubtedly happens) by filling his/her roster with high AI walk-ons.
Your stat’s make you competitive. If you don’t apply your chances are 0. Just make sure you have your other app’s for reaches, matches and safeties in good shape, and make good use of EA options and rolling admissions to possibly cut down your list by RD deadlines.
I can’t say definitely about Harvard, but a Princeton coach, who is of course working under the same Ivy League recruiting rules, told me that once he’d met his recruiting limit he was powerless to do anything to help an applicant.
The Harvard admissions people don’t like to read any more letters than required (2). They even get a bit nasty if more are sent in. So the coach sending in a letter will likely not go over well in the admissions office.
I know that other Ivy League coaches do offer letters, and these sometimes work. But I don’t think it will have much impact at Harvard. Ask the coach.
Hey @sgopal2, wondering where you got your info. I have never heard that the “Harvard admissions people…get a bit nasty” about a third letter. In fact, my D, now in the Class of 2020, sent a third letter. The first two were from teachers from two very different academic fields, and the third was from the teacher of her major extracurricular. D felt it was an important addition to her admissions folder.
@EastGrad It was the admissions officer who gave the on-campus info-session on 3/3/17. I don’t remember the name of the guy. Harvard does a pretty good job of obscuring the names/email addresses of the admissions officers, so I can’t even look it up.
My son, now a freshman at Harvard, also sent 3 letters: two from teachers in very different academic fields (math and history), one from his very serious extra curricular (though it was in the arts, not a sport). His college advisor suggested he send the 3 letters, all quite different. Didn’t seem to hurt. I know the college advisors at his school always say to never send MORE than 3 letters, but 3 letters are approved as long as they emphasize different qualities in the applicant.
My son graduated in May, and he actually met his admissions officer the fall of his senior year in HS. She was traveling through our town and invited him for coffee – apparently this is not unusual. Anyway, she encouraged him to submit anything - extra letters of recommendation, academic updates, etc., and in the following years as we’ve learned more about the admissions process at Harvard, it’s clear to me that they encourage and will look at anything meaningful.
That said, they don’t want a letter from someone who has never met the student and who cannot offer anything that isn’t already in the application. What they want to avoid is the letter from some bigwig alum who is a friend of a friend of the student’s parent. That type of letter definitely won’t help, but then again, I really doubt that they would hold it against a student and it would be harmful – not the kid’s fault if a clueless parent solicited such a favor.