<p>As Ivy League recruited athletes narrow their choices in the summer and early fall, the question of the reliability of athletic likely letters naturally comes up. My son went the likely letter route last year and everything went exactly as advertised. He applied in September, had an official visit in mid-October, and had a LL in hand before the end of October. This college does not offer ED, so he had to wait until April 1 for the actual acceptance. He treated his LL as an early acceptance and made no other applications except to our state flagship as an ultra-safety (at my insistance).</p>
<p>From his experience as well as talking to other athletes and parents in his sport, and from what I've read on CC and from PMs from helpful CC members, I am convinced that likely letters are absolutely reliable so long as the applicant doesn't do anything that would cause a rescission of a regular acceptance (precipitous drop in grades, academic dishonesty, criminal activity, etc.)</p>
<p>For the benefit of the kids and their parents struggling with the process this year, can any of you confirm or counter my observations?</p>
<p>Yea…I mean you have to reeeally screw up for the likely not to hold up. But then again it’s the same with an actualy acceptance. IF you screw up reeeally bad it could be rescinded. If you didn’t get in with a likely, it’s more like a rescinded acceptace than a rejection.</p>
<p>We’ve never heard of a problem with a likely letter either. At S’s school several kids were admitted to Ivy’s each year as recruited athletes and I never heard of a likely letter being revoked. (Did know of one Stanford recruit having to explain his senioritis, but that’s another story and all worked out in the end).</p>
<p>My S’s recruitment via likely letter was as described above: recruited all junior year, invited on Official Visits after July 1, likely letter in hand via fax/email before the November 1 EA/ED deadlines, changed his RD application to ED when we got the likely letter and his official acceptance letter came in December…</p>
<p>Never heard of a true Likely Letter not being followed by an acceptance. Only issues I’ve heard have been when others have assumed they received a “Likely letter”, when it was in fact something else. To clarify, a true Likely Letter from an Ivy will come from the admissions office, not a coach or member of the athletic staff. I have never heard of one being issued until admissions has received a full application and scores, sometimes with essays, sometimes without. From my personal experience with two Ivies and likelies were not sent until after official visits and applications had been completed.</p>
<p>Does anyone have experience with a likely letter/approved application taking place prior to senior year? In my daughter’s sport rumors abound, and I recently heard that an athlete was fully accepted during her junior year for admission one year hence. She’s now attending said university.</p>
<p>I guess it’s possible if she took her SAT really early and got a good score, but even at that I think they’d want to atleast see her whole jr. year transcript.</p>
<p>My D just got her LL. She had her ED app in in September, and was told they could not issue LL until after October 1 of senior year. Maybe because it is an Ivy? i don’t know.</p>
<p>As you can see from the following article (dated July 26, 2009, the summer before this particular recruit’s senior year), you can commit to the school before senior year. Although, the player has not signed yet (I think signing is in November for basketball, Ivy or not), he is “in” as have been all Ivy recruits from the school mentioned. This school always has plenty of Ivy bball players and they are all announced early and they all always end up signing.
[The</a> Harvard Crimson :: Sports :: Prep Star Brown to Play for Amaker’s Crimson in 2010](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=528611]The”>http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=528611)</p>
<p>OldDoc - Although there are not likely letters, at least some of the NESCAC colleges seem to be pretty good at giving ED applicants strong assurances of admission. There’s a giant google-docs spreadsheet that tracks womens’ soccer recruits, and I just saw a Williams recruit’s “verbal commitment” listed there. I was surprised that anyone would go on record in that way before ED results came out, so it must be a fairly sure thing.</p>
<p>Thanks FauxNom-that helps. We were feeling pretty confident that the coach was as good as her word, and then some other parents told us horror stories-not about Williams or Midd-and made us nervous about if we were being delusional or naive.</p>
<p>I know the prep schools are great about getting solid early commitments for their athletes from Ivies and NESCAC’s. My son tells me every year of the seniors who have “commited” to NESCAC’s from his team (there are usually at least three). He usually tells me this before the end of his season (November) and the kids always do end up going an playing. A junior just verballed to Brown…I know it seems very early, but all the Ivy verbals always end up going as well.</p>
<p>key, I’d be careful with that statement. A team member at an Ivy told me about a top recruit who had been courted throughout the summer and fall. The coach thought a likely letter would be completely possible, and said so to the athlete. Current team members were told this recruit would be joining them the following year. However, admissions felt differently, the athlete was denied the letter and had to move on. This happened within the last two years. There was no deception on the part of the coach, but this underlines the point that coaches don’t always correctly anticipate the admissions decision. There may be more to the story: maybe the athlete wasn’t completely truthful with the coach about scores or GPA or had some other weakness made clear in the application. Athletes must always keep some options open until the admissions cycle is complete.</p>
<p>^^Absolutely. However, this school is a bit different because it is a top prep. It is common for these kids to be recruited into the Ivies and NESCAC’s and all info on grades and test scores is confirmed through college counseling and coaches (my son’s coach, for instance, is also his college counselor) who work closely with the colleges and recruiting coaches. The school makes these announcements and in 7 years of having students there, I have never seen one not come to fruition. I was only using it as an example to point out that you don’t really have to have the “likely letter” in the fall; many exceptions are made and the letter ends up just being a formality.</p>