My 12th grader, the youngest child wants to apply to college as SCEA.
She is an academically excellent student and has well-developed extracurriculars, but as an Asian female student who wants to study biology in college, her chance of getting in is still quite slim.
She has played her sports at an advanced level, but since she played out of states most of the time, she wasn’t recruited. But recently she reached out to the assistant coach of the school she is applying to, and he has replied to her that he is more than happy to write her a recommendation letter. The coach met my daughter last year at one event, and he used to work with the other US coach who knows my daughter quite well, but actually, the college coach himself does not know my daughter well.
In that case, with the assumption that he keeps his promise, what do you think are the odds of her getting in? Do the recruited athletes have other procedures for admission? Or do they just get recommendations from the coahes?
A letter of recommendation from someone who met your daughter once is not going to get here in, regardless of who the recommended is. A supplemental rec,but the college accepts them, from herr actual coach is far more impactful.
The recruiting process is too involved to explain, but it is much, much more than simply the coach writing a LoR. More details, if you are so inclined, can be found in the athletic recruits subforum
Is the coach offering to provide her “soft support” - is that what he means by a recommendation letter ? Has he viewed her academics, high school profile and test scores with admissions?
If the answer above is yes - a very important question for your daughter to ask is what % of students getting soft support in her sport usually get accepted ?
Is her sport a club sport vs a recruited sport?
Has she reached out to other coaches or only this school ?
Are other members of the team able to major in biology? Depending on the sport, season, practice times - it can be hard to take lab based courses - or limited ti certain semesters.
Thank you very much for the comment! I will share this with my daughter.
I’ve realized that there are so many questions we do not know the answer to. But, I don’t think my daughter is in a position to push for the answer, because she was going to apply to that school anyway. No, to think of that, she was going to apply to Stanford after zoom meeting with the head coach in the spring who told her that she would talk to the admission office when she applies, but she was not recruited and there was no more reply from the Stanford coach, so thought moved to her initial dream school. She went through the pre-read with the JHU, and the JHU coach has told her she will get the likely letter if she applies early, and Brown coach also told her that he will talk to his admission liaison if she applies. My daughter is good at her sport ( it is not a club sport), but she was not recruited officially to any school. I think her academic credential has to do with the other coach’s interest. Thank you very much.
Asking the questions coffeeeat suggested isn’t pushing, it’s entirely appropriate!
I do understand your D will apply to this school regardless what the coach might answer, and wish her the best of luck.
Good input so far.
Ivy coaches have a limited number of recruits they can formally support. Recruits receiving that formal support have a near certain chance of admission.
It does not sound like your daughter is in that group (although I’m not clear if the Brown coach was suggesting she could be).
Whether the sort of informal or “soft” support the coach is offering helps a lot or a little or not at all is unclear. Some coaches will make this offer—I’ve heard of this happening mostly at Harvard—and there probably are athletes who get in this way. It’s hard to know how many get such support and aren’t admitted though.
My own belief is that if soft support helped a lot in a predictable way it would violate conference rules. But really only the coaches and admissions staff will know the track record.
The JHU offer, on the other hand, seems pretty reliable. You would want to ask that coach what percentage of supported recruits with positive pre-reads are admitted. But your daughter should understand that she might be passing up a 99% chance of admission to JHU for soft support that is not likely to provide anywhere near the same odds.
With that in mind, and if she’s still deciding, it wouldn’t be at all inappropriate to discuss her options with the Ivy coach and try to get a better sense of the odds with soft support.
To clarify a few things that might not be clear to you - and I apologize in advance if you already know this:
My daughter only worked with Assistant coaches (Ivy and Top D1 programs) during the recruitment process and never a head coach. Don’t view Asst Coach as a bad thing.
She was recruited - but that meant SHE was the one reaching out and making contact. Coaches were not beating down our door to get her to sign 
Coaches (pre-Covid) might say hi, make a positive comment or encourage their current athletes to talk to the high school athletes at big events - but that was it. It was all up to the athlete to manage the process with the coach. Some coaches were surprised she was reaching out and presumed she was going to certain program and she had to explain why she was looking beyond the obvious choice.
The most important thing to understand is if the coach is offering soft support and communicating to admissions. It sounds that way and I highly encourage her to follow up before submitting her app. With SCEA, it is obviously a highly competitive school with the majority of the applicants qualified (or as people say a lottery school) and having coach soft support is a positive.
There is nothing wrong with asking the coach clarifying questions - he/she will be their mentor at college and she needs to be comfortable advocating for herself. Saying I have an offer to JMU - but my 1st choice is your school and your program and I would like to clarify your thoughts around my REA application before moving forward.
If she is set on continuing her sport - will the offer be there from JHU or others in the RD round?
Ivy league recruiting follows a formal process. Students reach out to the coaches, who then create their own list, which is sent to admissions. Those on the coaches list who meet academic criteria as stipulated by the admissions office are admitted – usually via the form of a “Likely Letter”.
The cutoff for GPA/scores varies by college and sport, but in general is no lower than 1 standard deviation below the mean Academic Index (AI) for that college. The admissions office also screens for academic dishonesty, cheating, etc. But in general if an ivy league coach provides formal support, it increases the chances of admission by a lot. In the recent Harvard litigation, the odds of admission is 5070, nearly a 99% probability for recruited athletes will full coach support.
A letter of recommendation, phone call, or any other outreach to admissions from an Ivy coach means much less. They do consider it, but it doesn’t have the same weight as being on the coach’s list. Some admissions offices don’t like letters because some coaches use it as a way of getting more students on their teams as walk-ons.
Other colleges use a similar system. For example NESCAC schools use a system of tips and slots. I’m not familiar with JHU, but its probably similar. So if the coach from Hopkins is offering a recruitment spot, it is big deal.
Your daughter needs to ask blunt questions to the coach and get firm answers. Does this mean you are recruiting me? If so how much does this help my chances? What % of students with similar level of support in the past were rejected?
Also ask about an “Official Visit” and admissions pre-reads. Keep us posted.
Unless Harvard has changed its admissions rating system recently, it assigns an “Athletic Rating” to each applicant as part of the applicant’s evaluation, so the letter may serve to boost that score. However, this is far from the almost certain admissions boost one would get as a recruited athlete. For Yale and Princeton, I have not heard of coaches offering to write such letters, which even if it happens, would at best marginally boost a sport EC.
So overall, I think the letter is a plus, but I would not raise your admissions expectations by much, if any.