<p>Do you know when we get those? And do they come in the mail/via email?</p>
<p>There's no such thing as an UNlikely letter, lmao.</p>
<p>Only a tiny, tiny percentage of applicants get likely letters, and most of them are athletes. I think I heard somewhere that only 10 non-athletes out of all 25,000+ applicants got one last year. :/</p>
<p>One of the football players at my school got that letter in October. The joke of the year is that the football guy Stanford tried recruiting was such a dimwit that he turned down Stanford for Central Michigan. </p>
<p>Don't worry about the unlikely/likely letters. It doesn't happen very often.</p>
<p>Oh my, why did he turn down Stanford for that? That's ridiculous.....what kind of package was he offered by Stanford?</p>
<p>Seriously, Central Michigan isn't even a football step forward, much less academic.</p>
<p>lol, 'We are writing to tell you that your acceptance to Stanford University is unlikely...'</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>and I haven't even heard of Central Michigan.</p>
<p>^ ahahahaha exactly. That's just ridiculous.</p>
<p>"Let's be honest, here. We looked at you application pretty briefly, and quickly decided that you have lost your marbles if you ever thought you had a chance. We can't officially reject you yet, but we recommend you get a life."</p>
<p>LOL</p>
<p>Lol, OP, what exactly were you thinking?</p>
<p>My son received a likely (not an UNlikely??) letter last year from Stanford. I think it was in late January or early February. He applied from a large public school in the midwest that sends very few students to selective colleges. He was not a minority or an athlete.</p>
<p>Dayum, did he have amazing stats or something that really made him stand out? </p>
<p>Do only athletes get likely letters or, like the last post implies, do minorities get them as well?</p>
<p>He had excellent stats, but so do most of the people who apply to very selective colleges. He mainly stood out because of the iniative he took in pursuing his passions and how far he had gone beyond the school's curriculum. </p>
<p>I think the likely letters are one more tool colleges use to attract students with unusual attributes or who are from a different background. Getting one is nice, but if you don't it doesn't mean you are a lesser candidate.</p>
<p>"He had excellent stats, but so do most of the people who apply to very selective colleges. He mainly stood out because of the iniative he took in pursuing his passions and how far he had gone beyond the school's curriculum."</p>
<p>Um, could you be a little less vague? I'm fairly certain that such a statement is applicable to most CC members. What made him really stand out?</p>
<p>"I think the likely letters are one more tool colleges use to attract students with unusual attributes or who are from a different background. Getting one is nice, but if you don't it doesn't mean you are a lesser candidate."</p>
<p>Oh, yes it does. I know people who work in the admissions office at Stanford, and they always tell me how little they think of the candidates who don't receive likely letters. And it's not just them, strangers off the street sometimes drop by the admissions office and ask who got "likelies" and who didn't, and then they parade up and down Palo Alto making fun of those who were just "casual" admits.</p>
<p>That seems really harsh and unnecessary. Why would people walk around making fun of someone who actually got in? How could they admit someone they think little of? </p>
<p>And how many people get likely letters anyway?</p>
<p>Lol, I am pretty sure pennypac is joking.....
However, I too wonder how many people get likely letters; does anyone know?</p>
<p>"I'm fairly certain that such a statement is applicable to most CC members. What made him really stand out?"
That's possibly true, but colleges look at context. He loved math and very few of his classmates in his large public school system had any interest in the subject. There were no math contests, math extracurriculars and they were about to cancel BC Calculus for lack of enrollment.
He started a math club, persuaded the school to offer the AMC 12 (over 100 students took it this year), helped keep BC alive, coached a math team that placed in the state contest ahead of more prestigious school systems and trained himself to qualify for the AIME. He had many firsts in science and math for his school, too numerous to mention.
All of these accomplishments are true of many CC members (where we first learned about them), but no one at his school knew anything about them.
I hope that clears things up a bit.</p>
<p>Oh, also-last year they wrote in his letter that they sent out 100 likely letters. I have no idea if they are even using them this year.</p>