Congratulations! Enjoy senior year and get ready for a great four years at a world class university!
@Ohiodad51 Thank you! I have a quick question: the coach told me she’s offering me full support, etc. so after I submit my application do I get my likely letter? How does it work?
@swimmerx1234 That is an excellent question to ask the coach. She will be able to fill you in on the details of the process at Columbia, and I am sure is used to answering those types of questions from recruits. I would not hesitate to ask for details, because the coach wants this process to go as smoothly as you do. Think about it this way, once the coach decided to support you, you shifted from being a recruit to be evaluated to a member of the team who can’t compete yet. In order to get the benefit of you competing for the Lions, she needs to get you in the school, and wants to do that in as efficient and painless way as possible. Giving you precise information about how things work will help further that goal, and help ensure that she is not down a swimmer next year either because you miss something, or become frustrated and decide to go somewhere else.
Generally, the way I understand the process is that once the recruit submits the full application packet, the application is “tagged” in some way as a potential student who is being supported by the swim team. Then all the applications so tagged are taken to a sub committee of the admissions committee for review on a particular day. That sub committee then decides whether to issue a likely letter or not. Assuming that the decision is positive, you should hear about it either by receiving an e mailed copy of the letter or a phone call in the day or so following the meeting.
Your coach should be able to tell you the day or a range of days that the sub committee is set to meet to look over swimming applications. I will caution you that in my son’s case, the day his application was supposed to be reviewed last year kept changing, which personally drove me nuts. But there were reasons for that. He is a football player so there are a lot of recruits, they sign in February so the early signing sports were prioritized, the person tasked with the initial review (his school had all requests for a likely letter reviewed by one person for a recommendation and then sent to another for approval) was on an impromptu vacation for a week or so, etc. But it all worked out in the end, and the odds are huge that it will work out for you as well. You are now over the biggest hurdle, and while this phase may still be a bit stressful, realize that the odds in your favor have now flipped from something like a 7% chance of admission to 98% chance of admission.
One point of caution. As you can see from this board, there are situations where a recruit who is being fully supported by a coach is not provided a likely letter by admissions. While this does happen, it tends to happen rarely, and usually in unique circumstances. As an example, the son of one of the posters on this board did not get a likely letter even though he was fully supported because the decision to attend that particular school was not made until a few weeks before the ED notification date (if I remember correctly). Other posters have discussed a variability of likely letters based on school and sport. This is information that I do not have, as the sports and recruits with which I am personally familiar (many football players, a handful of wrestlers and one or two baseball and basketball guys) use likely letters as a matter of course across all teams. But again, your coach will have the very best information on this point and will be able to explain how the likely letter process works in Morningside Heights.
Again, congratulations, enjoy your senior year, and start accumulating powder blue bling!