Likely Letter and Early Decision

<p>On October 6th, I submitted an Early Decision application to an Ivy with a coach's promise of "full support." He mentioned that he would be pursuing a Likely Letter for me, and that I could expect it within a week of my application's receipt by the Admissions office. At this point, I still have not received the letter, and I wanted to know what that means. Is it possible the admissions office wants to see my first quarter grades (one of which is, unfortunately, a C+ in AP Calc AB -- all the others are As and A-s)? Some of my previous posts discuss my academics in greater detail, but to be succinct, I had a pre-read at this school and it came back with a "green light to move forward." Any thoughts?</p>

<p>Check with the admissions office if they received all your materials and are processing it. If the school has an online status site, if they emailed you with a log in so you can check on your application status, use that to make sure everything is proceeding.</p>

<p>Delays and reschedulings are not uncommon when it comes to the committees that evaluate the LL submissions. Or could just be they’re waiting to evaluate until after the ED deadline. If there has been some hiccup in the process, your coach is probably aware of it. I’d give him a call. </p>

<p>Whenever you want, it’s appropriate to speak to the coach. </p>

<p>Thank you all for your input. I spoke to the coaches a few days ago and they both indicated that I could count on attending next fall. I got a letter from an assistant coach and a phone call from the head coach welcoming me to the school. The head coach said that he has never supported an athlete who did not ultimately get in. This is all comforting info, but I still worry that I could be the exception. If the AdCom is waiting for first quarter grades, I’m concerned that my C+ in Calc will tank the whole thing.</p>

<p>Ian123</p>

<p>Congratulations.</p>

<p>It appears based on what the coaches said that you have the equivalent of a likely letter. A single C+ in calculus will not tank a LL, but I would encourage you to study and bring that grade up to a B.</p>

<p>At this point, are LLs still being sent for early decision candidates? Is it a rolling process, where a candidate may not receive a letter until later in November, even if the app was submitted in Early October?</p>

<p>A likely letter can be issued anytime after Oct 1 and before the decision deadline. I don’t believe there is any other set policy.</p>

<p>My son submitted his Ivy application in mid-Oct last year, and LL arrived second week of November. The wait was tough! </p>

<p>Ian - next time you speak with the coach, ask for a discription of the LL process (e.g., special committee meetings, etc.). Ask where are you in that process (focus on the process, not the conclusion). It’s possible that every piece of the app (e.g., LOR) hasn’t caught up with the app.</p>

<p>When S was going thru the process, it didn’t move as fast as we wanted (in hindsight it was actually moving really fast, but we were in day-to-day mode). The coach kept S in the process loop so we could basically track where his app was during the week (e.g., there was a week where the committee didn’t meet, which delayed the entire line of athletes by a week).</p>

<p>My D checked in regularly with the coach and asked specific questions about the LL timeline. In Sept he told her the admin com meets every two weeks. D had everything submitted by Sept. 30, in early Oct. when D called coach he was very forthcoming about exactly which morning the admission committee would be looking at her package. He said she could expect a call from admissions in the afternoon and then the letter would be mailed. This is exactly how it went and she now has the letter in hand. Even with all the information we were nervous leading up to the date. Every school may be different in the way they go about LLs, but I agree with Stemit that the coach should be be able to give you some detailed info about the process. I would ask the coach if he has a date when the committee will be looking at your package. Then ask what is the process for informing successful candidates. These seem like reasonable questions.</p>

<p>Sorry to resurrect this thread, but I got an e-mail from the coach saying i had been “submitted for LL.” That was on the 6th (Thursday). Could I expect (or hope for) a likely letter by the end of the week?</p>

<p>It depends on when that committee meets, whether they have any questions, all the documents, etc. You certainly can hope for it, but you can’t control the schedule.</p>

<p>How often would you say the committee meets? Also, if they have any questions/want to see more information, etc., how would I be informed?</p>

<p>Ian123, it depends on the school. They are all different. Did you have a formal preread? If you did, I think you can relax. Not all the Ivies have prereads, so if you have applied to one of those, I understand why you might be nervous, but it sounds like the coach knows what he is doing. The coaches ought to be quite good at guessing which athletes will get through admissions.</p>

<p>About first quarter grades, are they normally required for early admission? If not, then I don’t know why they would ask for them. They will want them eventually, but only to make sure there haven’t been any major changes. I vaguely recall that my d applied early to a nescac school and at some point they asked for first semester grades but that was after she was accepted.</p>

<p>My son received his likely letter today from Yale. Very exciting!</p>

<p>Congrats, skeimig! I finally received my likely letter the other day as well. It seems that everything worked out in the end!</p>

<p>I JUST GOT MY LIKELY LETTER YESTERDAY! Looks like I’ll be at Columbia next year!!</p>