No likely letter from any Ivy means you won't get into Harvard?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
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<p>yes-there is at least one person on CC who received one from Harvard in US. </p>

<p>LLs are issued to highly sought after URMs no doubt but they are not the only group receiving LLs.</p>

<p>I know several people who received them from Columbia who are not in anyway can be classified as URM. They are being done in groups by Columbia to show early interest that these people are wanted.</p>

<p>Yale issued a bunch of likelies to people they were interested in for sciences, computer science and engineering and even gave them a paid trip to visit for a special program. </p>

<p>I know at least one non-URM receiving a LL from Dartmouth who is already admitted SCEA to Yale (kind of confirms OPs original premise that they are identifying some top candidates early). </p>

<p>Harvard is using LLs to target specific people (could be URMs, Internationals, low income/first gen students etc who might be part of Questbridge but Harvard does not use QB and so they find them on their own). Yale is using LLs to target specific type of kids they are trying to attract (Yale has been overwhelmingly targeting and admitting various prize winners) and Columbia seems to be issuing LLs to people in a bunches (50-100 at a time) and so is Dartmouth and Cornell. They are trying to gain an edge by notifying students early when they have decided on the student as admit worthy. Personally, I think they are using them like rolling admission letters but I could be wrong on the analogy.</p>

<p>Penn has done them in one shot last month and they normally make a big hoopla video and release it to those LLs. Someone even posted it on CC and it seems open to anyone if you know the URL.</p>

<p>Princeton and Harvard used to issue a lot of LLs because they had no way to admit athletes and others early for the past 6 years. Since they both have SCEA this year, the numbers must have gone down drastically because they admitted most of the athletes, legacies etc in SCEA.</p>

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<p>LL are not only issued to URMs and recruited athletes. My D received a LL from Harvard last year. She is not a URM. She was also accepted by Cornell, Princeton, and JH, but rejected by Yale, Brown, and Dartmouth. That goes to tell you every school is looking for different things. She is now a very happy freshman at H and it’s a perfect fit.</p>

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<p>FYI from last year.
<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/2/15/admissions-letters-letter-fitzsimmons/[/url]”>http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/2/15/admissions-letters-letter-fitzsimmons/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Anecdotally speaking, a girl from my school applied SCEA to Yale and got deferred but still got a “Penn likely”/LL from Penn last month. So, even getting an LL from a non-HYPS Ivy does not guarantee admission into HYPS, though this girl may well get into Yale or the other three schools RD. Only time will tell. Don’t sweat though. I can assure you that most people at Harvard didn’t receive LL’s.</p>

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<p>^I’m in a similar bind, with a Yale deferral and three Ivy likely letters. (don’t know if I mentioned the deferral earlier)</p>

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<p>Getting rejected from a lot of other schools might be reason to worry about chances for Harvard. The failure to receive likely letters from them is not cause to worry.</p>