<p>Is it common for the top schools to send out personalized letters soliciting a student to apply? Do most applicants get such a letter, or do they approach the school cold? Does it indicate anything one way or the other? Thanks.</p>
<p>I would take that as a good sign. My nephew was invited to apply to Andover because he was a finalist in a very prestigious scholarship. He doesn’t yet know if he will be accepted (the dreaded March 9th) but the school has been very encouraging throughout the process.</p>
<p>So if he/she qualified for this prestigious scholarship, top schools like Andover were notified by the scholarship and they reached out to him/her to apply. That makes sense. So they already had extensive information on the perspective student’s performance well before he/she applied. I would think that’s an advantage because Andover in that case is getting a lot of information about the student from a different source, which means a lower risk of making the wrong decision, as opposed to a student that they know nothing about that walks in cold and applies. Did the student have to apply like everyone else, ssat, letters of rec, etc…?</p>