<p>What is the deal with likely letters? When do they start going out? What schools use them? Why do schools send them? Which applicants do they send them to? (I'm assuming they don't send them to every accepted applicant).</p>
<p>Well, likely letters are primarily used for athletic recruits at Ivy League schools as a way of assuring admittance for the recruit. However, schools like Columbia and Dartmouth also give out likely letters to top TOP candidates in hopes that they will choose their school over other top universities they also likely applied to (HYPSM). Its a way of showing an applicant that school X really wants them to attend.</p>
<p>Basically, likely letters are rare to the point that there is absolutely no reason to even think about them.</p>
<p>In addition to the above post, likely letters are used at every ivy league school and stanford ( possibly others). Some academic and EC recruits are also sent out but its mainly for athletes. Depending on the school and year a given school could give out 200- 300 likely letters out of a pool of 30,000 applicants. Your chances of getting one are extremely small so don’;t get your hopes up</p>
<p>For a point of reference: by Ivy agreement, those eight can send them out in the window of Oct 1 to Mar 31. Also, a handful of private LACs use them too. I don’t know their windows however.</p>
<p>But to stress again the point, the MONSTROUS majority of admitees to those schools are never sent a Likely Letter.</p>
<p>I put together the following post about Yale’s likely letters. Most of it applies across the board.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/804816-quick-facts-about-likely-letters.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/804816-quick-facts-about-likely-letters.html</a></p>