No likely letter = Rejection?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Columbia University
1

<p>Title says it all.</p>

<p>Is not getting a likely letter a sign of rejection or do only certain applicants get one?</p>

2

<p>No, certainly not.</p>

3

<p>No. Columbia keeps issuing likelies until March 15th.</p>

4

<p>Your understanding of what a Likely Letter is and its purpose is extremely lacking.</p>

<p>Please read this (applicable to Columbia)
<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&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

5

<p>Only a very small percentage of the eventually accepted applicant pool gets a likely letter. Don’t worry.</p>

6

<p>^ Any more than normal, anyways.</p>

7

<p>No. It just means you are not likely to get accepted. Those who got the letter are. Not everyone who did not get a likely letter is going to get rejected/WLed, but you are not in the favored group that is almost certainly going to get accepted.</p>

8

<p>I wouldn’t even go so far as capofthehouse. Most admitted students don’t get likely letters.</p>

9

<p>It’s true that most admitted students don’t get likely letters. But cptofthehouse is still correct that if you don’t get a likely letter, you’re not likely to be admitted. If you back out those who get a likely letter and those who were admitted early from the overall pool, the admit rate for everyone else is around 4%.</p>

10

<p>Well sure. As soon as you hit “submit”, your odds were terrible in anyone’s eyes. That’s goes w/o saying.</p>

<p>I once joked that the confirmation email should say “Thank you for submitting your application. We regret to inform you…”</p>

11

<p>Yes, it should be said that the only thing likely about submitting an application to Columbia is a rejection.</p>

12

<p>

</p>

<p>This is false. Applications are read until close to the notification date, so it’s certainly possible some of the best applications and admitted students aren’t read until then. Not getting a likely letter really doesn’t mean anything since only a small fraction of admitted students receive one and and all the likely letters aren’t sent at once.</p>

13

<p>I know dozens and dozens of people who didnt get a likely letter from colleges but still got accepted. I think that says it all, really.</p>

14

<p>Well, given Columbia’s accept stats, most applicants are going to be rejected. Especially now that the ED spots are confirmed, almost every, more than 90% are not going to be accepted, and if you did not get a likely letter you are very likely not to get accepted. Do the math.</p>

<p>However, in all fairness most of those who are accepted did not get likely letters. But those who have them are almost certainly in, in fact, are accepted if they don’t do something stupid or there wasn’t a mistake. It is rare to get a likely letter, very, very rare , and not get accepted. Those who did not will be in the 90% group of those who will not get an accept.</p>

15

<p>Columbia admits about 1600-1700 during RD. I am guessing they issue about 200-300 likelies during the evaluation for RD.</p>

<p>Most of the academic likelies will be named scholars and they issue these letters as they pick the named scholars.</p>

16

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</p>

<p>There is no math needed. Likely letters were started to be sent out before a good fraction of the applications were even read. So not receiving a likely letter because your application was read late does not make you any less likely to get in because your application was read later.</p>