<p>Thank you Saona63! Congratulations to your son. We will continue to count down the days until Decision Day! </p>
<p>My daughter received this likely letter on Friday:</p>
<p>February 14, 2014</p>
<p>Dear …,</p>
<p>I have some important news to share with you about your application to the University of Pennsylvania’s Class of 2018. </p>
<p>Please visit: </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.likely.admissions.upenn.edu”>http://www.likely.admissions.upenn.edu</a></p>
<p>Sincerely,</p>
<p>Eric J. Furda C’87
Dean of Admissions</p>
<p>And today she got a Penn scarf in the mail…</p>
<p>I received mine two days ago! I received it by e-mail and applied to the College of Arts and Sciences. International applying for aid so I actually didn’t expect one. Very excited though!</p>
<p>Yes, my S got his scarf yesterday and two other letters today. They are “courting” our kids!! lol, love it 
</p>
<p>Did anybody receive a likely letter for M&T?</p>
<p>So, if you do not receive a likely letter, how much should that affect your admissions expectations?</p>
<p>@microbe: Not at all. Only ~230 students of the admitted ~3,800 students receive likely letters.</p>
<p>I personally think Likely letters are dumb. You really can’t tell if the people receive them are that much better than all the other applicants since you have so little valuable information in college admissions anyway. Most people seem to fluff their resumes and you can’t really trust grades or recommendations that much since their is so much inflation in that area.</p>
<p>I have heard of one girl who got a likely letter (in NSO since people don’t care about admissions in college) and personally I think she is nothing special compared to the other people I have met at Penn.</p>
<p>@microbe who wrote: "So, if you do not receive a likely letter, how much should that affect your admissions expectations? "</p>
<p>realistic expectations should be low for everyone who is rational. Let’s say 150 non athlete people receive Likely Letters. Out of 35,788 applications, that’s 0.004 %. And according to CollegiteDreams, only 6% of ADMITTED students get them. How do you read/analyze this?</p>
<p>@Poeme: Likely Letters are crucial in the arms race for recruited athletes. The pressures they face are not like anyone else’s. Their use for non-athletes is purely a marketing tool to show love because Penn feels other colleges will be wooing these same students. I would say your opinion may be tarnished b/c you know someone who seems unremarkable. I’d say one anomaly doesn’t reduce the overall utility of LLs in recruiting non-athletes.</p>
<p>@T26E4 my opinion has not been tarnished by one person, that’s just one example. My dislike of likely letters has to do with my cynicism about the college admissions process. The more time I have spent in college, the more I have realized that it really is a crapshoot and much of it is based on assumptions that turn out to be false. There’s just not enough information to decide who is really going to be a great student at Penn so admission has to try to fill in the gaps. A lot of the times they are right, but many times they get things completely wrong. A lot of kids who seemed to have incredible resumes in high school turn out to be mediocre, and many kids that didn’t do that much in high school turn out to be superstars.</p>
<p>A good example involves extracurriculars, which people here seem to think are incredibly important in college admissions. I have a few friends who I would say are probably some of the most brilliant kids at Penn just based on their accomplishments like getting prestigious awards, recognition in research and in the classroom, etc. This is in addition to just being absolutely brilliant upon first impression. However, these friends are all very introverted and were not doing a laundry list of extracurriculars in high school. That is probably why most of them did not get into schools like Yale, Stanford, or Princeton for example. However, they have fared tremendously better in grad school admissions as the process is based on tangible merit rather than superfluous factors like “fit” or being head of science club, or horseshoe club, or key club etc.</p>
<p>So based on this, how do you chose who gets likely letters (in non-athlete cases)? You really can’t and it just makes the process more stressful. And they really don’t improve yield much if at all, it’s pretty much a complete myth. I was on a committee that reached out to students who got likely letters sophomore and junior year, and I have to say even though I had very nice conversations with them, less than half each year ended up coming to Penn, consistent with the RD yield.</p>
<p>There was a phone call from an alumni last week.</p>
<p>“That is probably why most of them did not get into schools like Yale, Stanford, or Princeton for example.”</p>
<p>I would think Penn looks at candidates in the same light as the other schools. Personally, I get the impression that they value service over other attributes in ECs based their essay requirements. I do contend that people winning awards doing research are uniformly admittable across the board based on that trait alone with no other ECs.</p>
<p>One area of likelies I do think is great is that the writing program recommends some students which is a good thing. This area has influence from a real program outside of just the admissions office.</p>
<p>“A lot of kids who seemed to have incredible resumes in high school turn out to be mediocre, and many kids that didn’t do that much in high school turn out to be superstars.”</p>
<p>That would be a cool research project - we have enough data already - just need the admissions offices to share for the researcher. I am curious how the cancer curers from HS eventually land into the real world. May be admissions officers already have those research findings and hence they value it more?</p>
<p>On February 14th, my daughter received an email from the Kelly Writers House stating that they support her candidacy and that they’ve sent a letter on her behalf to admissions. Does anyone know how influential The Kelly Writers House is?</p>
<p>They are considered quite influential and they are the ones making recommendations for writers. Not sure whether everyone they nominate gets picked or just a high percentage.</p>
<p>Here is a thread from last year.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-pennsylvania/1457859-candidate-of-significant-interest-to-the-kelly-writers-house-what-does-this-mean.html”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-pennsylvania/1457859-candidate-of-significant-interest-to-the-kelly-writers-house-what-does-this-mean.html</a></p>
<p>Thanks. It gives me a little bit of hope!</p>
<p>Anxietyriddenmoom, did your daughter contact KWH previously or did they initiate contact?</p>
<p>@Poeme
Wao, interesting. My S got his LL now as a senior during RD. I don’t know, but by now all schools have his credentials. Love the fact that he’s very smart, with a time management hardly seen yet an amazing sociable guy. I honestly wish he continues this way</p>
<p>I think the issue is that people think that the college admissions process is infallible when in reality it is very flawed. This is not just in the selection criteria (which I believe has many issues), it also comes from credential inflation. Lots of students were the big fish in a small pond. Even though they got a 4.0 in high school and had times to do tons of ECs, they may not be able to compete once they get out of their bubble. A few people I know had this experience where they never had to work in high school and actually never fully developed the work ethic they needed to succeed at Penn. Others priorities may change, they may not work as hard as they should in college because they assume the Penn name will get them to the next step. Some students will burnout, many times because they do things for the wrong reasons.</p>