Not a school that’s as popular as most of the others listed here - but for completeness and for the benefit of those reading this thread in the future: Stevens Institute of Technology is also known to send likely letters to select very high stat kids in mid February.
(source: kids of friends received these in prior years)
I believe Washington and Lee sends likely letters to underrepresented minorities, as part of it’s strategy to increase its diversity.
Emory sent one of my sons a likely letter 3 years ago.
I think there are more colleges that send likely letters than people realize. People only care about the superselective colleges that do this. Back in the day, my daughter got a likely letter from a SUNY school. Nobody on CC gets excited about those though 
My DS received one in mid January from UChicago (2 cycles ago). It was about 2 weeks after he submitted his app.
Also UC regents — UCB’s confirm admission while UCLA’s don’t (but still mean applicant is in). UCSB’s chancellor reception invites, etc.
I can’t speak to likely letters, but I do think it’s odd that my daugther is receiving recruiting materials for university she already applied to. The letter and materials clearly says “Now that you applied…” Seems like a waste of money. But again, who knows what the university’s marketing goals are.
One of my children continued to receive invitations to the university’s summer program for HS students even two years after he had enrolled at that school. I think that was a matter of one department not communicating with another.
Re: Likely Letters. The other child received a LL from Columbia on March 1st, but I believe that is because Columbia invited him to participate in a Science Research Fellows Program. I had not realized that the program existed or that LL would be extended to anyone other than as described in this thread: URMs, women in Engineering, recruited athletes, etc.
I don’t believe being a woman in engineering by itself will earn someone a LL, unless they also have one of the other hooks mentioned here.
I don’t know exactly how it works, but I know of a female STEM type and a male ORM STEM who each got likelies 2-3 cycles ago (yale/stanford). No hooks unless you count the female as a hook. They were very very impressive applicants all around, so it wasn’t terribly surprising other than it is rare to get LLs.
I see, interesting. Thanks for sharing.
No I wouldn’t count that by itself as a hook at most schools - unless a school has a significant gender imbalance and they are actively looking to address that. But even then, I would expect you need more to get an LL.
Yes I agree—I think they both had way more: I would suspect had “best of my career” type LOR , etc.
I know of one young woman who received a LL from Cornell Engineering five or six years ago, so I think it is safe to say that the use of LL varies completely by university, and even program within a university. She was completely unhooked, as was my son who received the LL from Columbia. Both were very attractive applicants but not who you would think would be the typical recipients of LL.
My son got a call from the Yale admission officer who told him that he would get a likely letter. Then she sent an email welcoming him to Yale and also offered an all-expense-paid trip to Bull Dog weekend as Yale Engineering and Science Scholar. He is super excited (so are we)!
Congrats! That’s amazing
That is fantastic!!!
What’s a “cypher letter,” and how does it differ from a LL please?
A cypher postcard is the William and Mary version of a likely letter. It’s W&M being cheeky, since in British English, one definition of “cypher” is intertwined initials like the below.
