Likely Letters?

<p>I received a likely letter to an ivy a week ago, but with a rigorous senior year course load I was wondering what grades it would take for the school to not follow through in the EA round?</p>

<p>Its hard to say exactly what grades they are looking for and it depends largely on the school but I would say that if you keep your grades at mostly Bs with a few C’s at the lowest they would still let you in. Its definitely better to air on the side of caution though. I mean you only have 3/4 of a school year left you might as well finish it off strong! Its very uncommon for a Ivy to deny an applicant who received a LL and it takes quite a bit of slacking to do. The LL I received said that if I didn’t keep good grades than I would just struggle more Freshman year…It didn’t even say that they would reject me.
Hope that helps!</p>

<p>I wouldn’t let the grades drop much, if I were you. A few B’s are OK with a tough schedule, but no C’s. While it is very unlikely they will rescind the offer, there’s no legal reason why it can’t happen. Also, Ivy applicants and athletes keep on getting more and more competitive. What if you’re on the lower end of their recruit pool and some superstar comes along late in the game? Now you’ve given them an excuse to bump you… I know a school that recruited a girl in D’s sport in late spring who had had a breakout senior season, even though everyone else had been chosen between July and February. Reading the roster bios of my D’s teammates at a top school, let me assure you they are all super students in addition to being super athletes. This is what the Ivies and Stanford want and pride themselves on.</p>

<p>I agree with the other posters comments about the level of your grades. But I would add this: if you cannot keep up with a rigorous HS load, you will not be able to cope with what’s coming next year. Next year is not an “evolution”, its a revolution. Your training will reach levels that you may be able to articulate, but not able to really comprehend - yet. You will be training with full fledged adults (your new teammates), each of whom was the star of their region, and who are several years older and wiser. Your academics will be so much more demanding that it will make you wonder what you really did learn in HS - and virtually every person in every class was the star student in their school. Your social life will be raging and you will make all the decisions on which temptations to embrace and which to avoid - and there is a steep learning curve associated with that! Congrats on the LL! Now get ready to take off the training wheels.</p>

<p>I second stemit’s observation. Ivy League courses require a lot of hard work and, for probably the first time in your academic life, every one around you will be hardworking and smart.</p>

<p>If you start getting "B"s in HS you may not be ready for an Ivy. To put in in perspective, DS went from seven APs both junior and senior year to four courses at his Ivy and told me the workload was tremendously greater.</p>

<p>However, the other side of the coin is that in college you have a syllabus for each class which lays out the semester/quarter schedule well in advance. Professors seldom throw a big project or paper at you last minute like they do in high school. In addition, you won’t have the silly, busy work to do that high school teachers–even AP teachers–assign. In college you may not make the varsity or travel squad as a freshman and even if you do, will likely have fewer competitions for your sport than you did in high school (though travel will be a factor.)</p>

<p>Do not get in any kind of trouble from a disciplinary standpoint.Game over
Do not get a D. Game over.
Do not let ALL your course drop from As to Bs. Will take some explaining.
Some schools, one C will trigger a warning letter, and a very stressful follow up.
Most people don’t post about such troubles, but a few students have lost their LL status and been deferred to the regular admissions pool when their first semester grades have slipped significantly from their first quarter.
One poster got in trouble for pot smoking and lost his chance a few years ago.</p>

<p>Academic dishonesty will get your LL pulled, of course. Even if you are a pillar of integrity - if a friend asks to see a paper that you wrote and proceeds to plagiarize it, boom, you’re implicated.</p>

<p>thanks everyone!</p>