<p>My long time friend, according to my english teacher, received a letter from Harvard suggesting that they are interested in the student. She described it as Harvard being extremely interested, would this be just the normal Harvard/any other college in America buys you name from the PSATs and sends you junk, or does Harvard really recruit average, non athlete students with likely letters. And what does a likely letter even mean, that if you apply you'll likely be accepted?</p>
<p>My kids have gotten brochures with literature saying we hope you will consider Harvard etc. but it was not a “Likely letter” just normal advertising for a school, based on SAT’s leadership etc. Unless the friend is an athlete or is close to curing cancer I would guess this is the same type of letter.</p>
<p>See RONDIZZLE27,s question, I think this is probably what your friend got as well.</p>
<p>@EAO1227 - no she is not doing anything special, that is why I thought maybe it was the normal brochure, she really is just the average A student. Thanks</p>
<p>I likely letter is something that is sent out to students AFTER they apply. I know of one student who received theirs in December 2 years ago. On CC, I recall some mentioned in January I believe. What I likely letter states is something to the effect of if the student maintains their current grades etc, they will receive an acceptance March 31.</p>
<p>It sounds like the kind of letter sent to tens of thousands of students whose PSAT or other scores indicate that they are in range of what Harvard would require. Understandably, Harvard tries to get the best applicant pool possible so it can pick and choose from those students to create an outstanding class. By sending such letters, Harvard also will attract some excellent prospects who otherwise may not have applied.</p>
<p>Most of the people who get into Harvard have gotten such letters, but probably the same is true of most of the people who are rejected by Harvard.</p>
<p>Both of my sons are URMs who had extremely high SAT scores – 98-99th percentile, and they got such letters. However, I am an alum interviewer and knew that they had no chance of getting into Harvard since their unweighted gpas were under 3.0. When it sent them the letters, Harvard, however didn’t have info about their gpas or the fact that they came a privileged background, so were major underperformers due to laziness. My kids knew enough about Harvard, however, not to bother to apply because they knew they had no chance of being accepted.</p>