<p>That was a great post F., thank you! Happily, My D has NO IDEA about my concerns, that I am trying to learn everything I can about Ivy and other D1 types of recruiting, my curiosity and obsessive reading of CC threads!!! She goes to a New England Boarding School, so is safe from her mother’s fascination with this whole process - much, much better that way! D is a happy, healthy girl and a strong student. I know wherever/however this ends, all will work out for what is the best 
It is a heady time due to strong interest in her at this time from multiple coaches from colleges that she would love to go to (has visited them all, just on group tour/info sessions), but she has a much better perspective on it all, and a clearer focus, than her mother who has too much free time to obsess!!</p>
<p>Hi Mayhew</p>
<p>Your tall experienced crew daughter will have many options–experienced women are in high demand and get great $ because of the Title thing and equality with mens sports.</p>
<p>Nice grades, nice SATs and a nice ERG score will certainly open many doors.</p>
<p>Like you–CC has offered many new insights for this parent ;o) and luckily our student is focused on current school work and life so hopefully when the time comes I will have done due diligence in order to be better companion as our family embarks on the journey too ;o)</p>
<p>Mayhew- Key words “too much free time to obsess” --even if you are working 70 hours a week, those seconds crawl by, and then there are always the night time hours to awaken with worry.</p>
<p>For those of us who have been through it, we offer a hand, a pat on the shoulder, and a glass of something for comfort and distraction. Glad to hear your DD is safely sequestered at BS, away from mama bear’s rumblings.</p>
<p>A note to the above post-- no money given for Ivy athletics, only for demonstrated financial need.</p>
<p>"A note to the above post-- no money given for Ivy athletics, only for demonstrated financial need. "</p>
<p>D1s can give $ for athletics to women, right?</p>
<p>Fog Fog - What year is your high school student? Just curious if we will be going through this together on the same time line? I agree that like you, I am looking at this as doing “due diligence” - it will be helpful to have a clue if the pace of it all speeds up and decisions need to be made - good to have an idea of how the game is played ahead of time…! What is your child’s sport? Thank you so much too for your positive thoughts about D’s options :)</p>
<p>Regarding D1 $ for girls, it is available for athletic scholarships, just NOT at ivy league schools who are only need oriented - no merit/athletic, unlike many other colleges. Womens crew is a NCAA sport, yet mens crew is not, so I guess that opens up more scholarship $ to girls? I am not really thinking about $ as we are in that frustrating bracket where we would be denied need-based aid, yet would feel the impact of tuition. There are a few Ivies that D really, really would love to go to/row for, so we wouldn’t get $ - however, I wonder how us parents would feel if a non-Ivy D1 school started offering $? Hmmm…very tempting!!</p>
<p>Fauve - I really appreciate your experience and perspective - It is very helpful to hear from someone who may have been through it all Definitely good that D is completely unaware of her “mama bear” and mother’s musings, hypothetical questions, etc.! D is so much “cooler” than me, and sees it all in a very realistic and straightforward manner - wish I could be more like my 16 year old!! I do love the connections made here in this forum, and really appreciate the sharing of lessons learned.</p>
<p>Fogfog- As Mayhew notes, Div. I schools that are not Ivy can give athletic money. All Ivy League schools are Div. I, yet they have a league policy of giving no athletic scholarships. The only money given is from the financial aid office, upon proof of financial need. Harvard and Princeton have very generous financial aid initiatives where if a family earns up to 180,000.- with no unusual assets (extra houses, extra real estate, stock portfolios), the student receives some help. For families earning $60,000.- and under, the student receives full aid.</p>
<p>Mayhew- We knew so little while our two DDs went through Ivy recruiting. Somehow, both cycles were successful, to our greenhorn astonishment. I’m delighted to share the hard-won lessons.</p>
<p>Hi Mayhew/Fauve/all</p>
<p>A friend of ours just worked through this with a DD–who narrowed the options to 2 ivies and 2 non ivies…she is signing with a non ivy…
Evidently all the letters/offers for students should be in the mail or should have been in mailboxes as of a week ago (according to this parent)
This athlete is a girl/crew…it is quite exciting.</p>
<p>What happens if you get a likely letter but get a serious injury during your senior year and can’t play anymore – will your admission be rescinded? Or are you still in?</p>
<p>
Technically, at that point there is no admission to be rescinded, so the question really is whether the acceptance will still come following the injury. I have looked but haven’t found any official Ivy League policy on this, so it probably depends on the coach, sport, and school.</p>
<p>My son was in almost exactly this situation last season. He received his LL in October (RD only school) and was injured in December. Our local doctors did not know if or when he would be able to compete again. He explained the situation to the coach, who remained fully supportive. The coach introduced us to an expert (a parent of a team member) whose office had specialized diagnostic equipment for this type of injury, and who we eventually chose for the inevitable surgery.</p>
<p>In the end, everything worked out well. Acceptance came April 1. Surgery was performed in July. DS began training again in September and competed (and did very well) in his first NCAA event two weeks ago.</p>
<p>If you have a loved one in this situation, I wish you the best and hope he/she recovers well and is able to attend his/her chosen school.</p>
<p>sherpa, what a great outcome! Thanks so much for letting us know how your son is doing. And kudos to the school that took a chance on him. I’m sure they are patting themselves on the back about this one!</p>
<p>In light of our recent experience, I wanted to make a comment to benefit parents of younger athletes regarding likely letter reliability, which is the title of this thread. </p>
<p>CCers have stressed that likely letters are very dependable and I did believe them. However, I’ve heard rumors about kids who, for one reason or another, were told “we’re no longer interested” at the last minute by certain Ivies, so I did have a little bit of concern about this. In particular, I worried what would happen in the event of a spring- of-senior-year injury or something like that. Therefore, I considered whether D should at least appy to the state flagship as a fallback option.</p>
<p>However, while I was doing this calculated worrying, I had in mind the type of likely letter (academic, he wasn’t a recruited athlete) that my S had received from an Ivy when he was applying 4 years ago. That letter was literally worded “You are likely to be admitted”. At the time, we did wonder “how likely” and if that likelihood was only if admissions isn’t wrong about their applicant pool. What if later on they determine S isn’t as great of a candidate comparatively as they now think he is? The wording seemed vague and with plenty of wiggle room.</p>
<p>Anyway, the athletic likely letter D just got is infinitely more certain in its wording. It says: “…we will offer you a formal letter of admission to the class of 2014 on April 1.” Granted, there is a clause about maintaining current academic and personal standards, but only a “significant decline” will alter it. Still, this is much stronger than the letter S had received. Just wanted to pass this on.</p>
<p>^^ great post</p>
<p>athletic LL’s are done deals!</p>
<p>My son’s LL was delivered in the timeframe originally established…and so was the early acceptance…riverrunner helped us thru the “window of worry” timeframe… which is when your child narrows their choice to A selection and presses the submit button…and then you hope that their dreams come true… it worked 100% as committed to our son and I can only repeat my advice to every applicant… raise your hand far and wide, inquire if there is interest in your potentially unique contribution and do your research… on the academic end and the athletic end, the money $$ and the team and schedules and school calendars etc etc etc… having just come from our son’s first college event, we parents were really delighted with the tone the coach set for the event… the coach was smiling a lot…and very visible everywhere, encouraging, coaching and congratulating. A very welcoming environment for newbies…and positive for returning athletes. All good…</p>
<p>good information</p>
<p>I started this thread a long time ago and I’m bumping it now because there have been some nagging questions expressed about the reliability of LLs in a few recent threads.</p>
<p>I’d like to put this to rest once and for all. If anyone knows firsthand of an actual Likely Letter (full application, real LL from admissions) that didn’t result in an eventual acceptance, please post details here. If there are any examples that don’t involve criminal activity, a dramatic drop in grades, or academic dishonesty, I’ll be shocked and awed.</p>
<p>Thanks sherpa. I’m trying to confront this on another CC Athletic Recruiting thread as well. It’s so important that we present accurate information here. I’ll post a link to this thread over there…</p>
<p>I know this has been said lots of places on this forum, but I’m going to post this here and now to reiterate:</p>
<p>Ivy coaches generally have two possible levels of support. The strongest level is the LL which can be issued right about now, and into the winter, to solidify the commitment between the athlete and the school. I’m running under the assumption that for most athletes, agreeing to accept a LL means you’ve agreed to attend, which is the case about 97% of the time.</p>
<p>The other level of support is when the Ivy coach says he will “support you in admissions” and indeed does give your name to admissions and tells them to watch for your application, and that you are someone they’d love to see admitted because you would be a great addition to the team. This means you are not quite high enough on his recruiting list to make the LL-requested group, but that you are still more than welcome on the team. He also may think you are academically competitive enough to be accepted, and, though he can’t quite bring himself to give you the LL, the risk he’s willing to take is that you will get in the regular way.</p>
<p>So here’s my message. If you’re in the second group, and you’re not being offered a LL before Nov 1 by your dream school, but your almost-dream school IS offering, if you’ll commit before Nov 1, think very carefully. Only you and your family know what your tolerance for this game is. If you need to know you have a spot in this league, and the actual name on the sweatshirt isn’t all that critical to you, you may not have the stomache to wait and see if “coach support” alone is enough to get you in. You may want to take the second choice sure thing. Because, lets face it, the second choice is probably about a million kids’ first choice, and we all know lots of perceived differentiators between these schools is an exercise in hair-splitting.</p>
<p>I’m not here to give advice as much as try to shed light. And my heart goes out to each of you. I was chatting with my D1 college junior this morning and we both remembered vividly how crazy October was for us. We also celebrated a whole lot once it was over :)</p>
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<p>Riverrunner, I’m not 100% certain that this this 2nd tier support level exists in the Ivy League. I know the coach submits the names of the kids he wants admissions to consider for LLs, I just don’t know if he also submits a 2nd tier wish list. I’d like to hear from any Ivy athletes that were given ‘support’ but no LL who are now competing in the Ivy league</p>
<p>varska, without giving away too much, the reason I posted this today is a conversation I had this morning with someone who has an insider view of this process and clarified the “supported” list. The coach gets X LLs and if you’re recruit number X+n (where n is an integer > or = to 1), you get on the supported list.</p>
<p>What I don’t know is how this works at all 8 schools, and in each sport. I’m certain about one school and one sport. I’d love to have more solid confirmation from others on how this works across the board.</p>
<p>riverrunner, as usual your post is clearheaded and wise. I wonder if you could use your insider connections to find out what, if anything, “supported” actually means in the way of results We know (pretty much) that somewhere around 99% of LL athletes are accepted. What percentage of “supported” athletes actually gain acceptance in the ED or RD rounds?)</p>