Again asked of OP…times, distance or heights in an event(s) would clarify how badly Coach S wants you and if he’s being congenial or impactful w AsCom in that “note” (sticky, on letterhead, accompanied by a phone call, or face to face, etc)
Unless you are going to apply SCEA based on this…does it matter? Apply, get the letter, and see what happens.
Agree on asking the coach exactly what this means. Ask several specific questions about how much it helps, past success percentages, how many he does a season, etc.
I don’t think it’s a letter of recommendation we are talking about. It’s probably a one or two sentence email. Saying something along the lines of, “I don’t have any slots left, but this kid would definitely make varsity and possibly be a contributing member of the team in the future. If everything else looks good, I would love to have her on my team.”
I haven’t paid much attention to the Harvard lawsuit. But my guess is this might be enough to bump someone up to a 1 rating for athletics. It probably doesn’t do any more than that, but that could be the little bit that pushes a recruit over the edge.
@bopper, it could matter, if the OP is considering applying to another school ED as an academic recruit with full coach support (as in a NESCAC), but would opt for Harvard if admitted. It really depends on the OP’s objectives. If the OP is looking for other opportunities, it probably makes sense to assess the likelihood of a positive outcome at Harvard. The most accurate way of doing so is to ask the coach.
The “1” is reserved for recruited athletes.
https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/diverse-education/files/filing_-harvard_statement_of_material_facts-_as_filed.pdf
Good points all around. I never knew that Harvard had an athletic rating until the details from the recent lawsuit came to light.
Why would Harvard have an athletic rating for ALL applicants? Even the obvious non-athletes. This implies that admissions places an emphasis on athletics. In fact, according to the Arcidiacono report, athletics is weighed on par with personal factors and academics. I’m quite familiar with the admissions process at Duke, and they don’t have a separate rating for athletics. So why does Harvard? Before I saw the documents from the Harvard lawsuit, I would have agreed with most of you – that a letter of recommendation from a coach is meaningless. But now I’m not so sure.
None of us are on the admissions committee, so we won’t know exactly how much this matters. But if the coach is offering, what does the OP have to lose? I see only potential upside here, very little downside.
Again, not an AO, but I think this statement is in error. Yes, Harvard ranks athletics, and always has, and has never been a big secret. But I don’t think that it’s a simple arithmetic formula where 1+1+1+1=admitted.
As to why? My guess is because that the way it’s always been. Back in the day, Harvard, and its peers used to get a huse chuck of there class from the elite prep schools like Andover/Exeter where sports were (and still are) required.
what about sports like Curling, Judo, Badminton, Men Volleyball that the school does not have a team? How it helps athletic rating of an applicant?
Not relevant to the OP, but to answer:
Harvard has a varsity Men’s Volleyball team. For the others, I will assume, since Harvard will not tell you, that in those cases the best rating one can get is a “2.” If Nathan Chen did not warrant a 1, no other non-recruit would either.
I believe that the 1 and 2 are only used in the following situations: 1=top recruit, 2 =academically competitive student on their own who happens to play that sport and is respectable enough to be rostered.
I was told that he had 9 likely letters available, 16 spots for an official visit, and that I was 29th on this list of his recruits at that point. Not sure if any of the other athletes from 17th-28th are applying on their own with the aid of his letter of recommendation. I was also told that in recent years of him coaching, he has had 1 or two athletes per year be accepted with the aid of his recommendation. Would this change any of your guys’ opinions?
The letter will be no help to you. If you get in, you’ll probably make the team, but you are on your own for admissions. It is really nice that he is so honest with you.
Are any other schools interested and are you interested in any other schools?
No. But I’m also making the distinction between “couldn’t hurt” and “will help.” It’s not going to help much (if at all), but can’t hurt.
It’s all about perception. My perception is that those 1 or 2 athletes would have gotten in on their own anyway. I highly highly doubt that any AO walked over to the coach’s office and said “Coach, just to let you know, we admitted Applicant X, which we would not have done if you had not sent that note.”
One thing I will tell you about Harvard, for all its many strong points, it does have weaknesses. One (and I have no personal opinion about whether it applies to this particular coach) is that some people there, be they students, professors, or coaches, have an inflated opinion of their own self-importance.
I don’t think the new information changes my opinion so much as confirms that OP could well be an athletic “2”, since it sounds like they have a good shot at walking on to the team. See @Data10’s comment here: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/21687632/#Comment_21687632
As has been noted elsewhere, if you connect the dots in the expert reports related to the lawsuit, you’ll find that in the years reviewed, ~1% of applicants got a “1” in any of the three non-athletic categories, ~6% got three “2”s, this ~7% accounted for ~58% of admits, and likely included the overwhelming majority of admitted unhooked applicants. As noted upthread, it sounds like OP could be an academic “2” (but we don’t have enough information about the applicant or Harvard’s ratings process to be sure.
If in fact Harvard rates OP an athletic and academic “2”, and assuming that OP isn’t hooked, it means that if OP’s ECs/personal qualities are “2”-level stellar, then their odds look a lot better than those of the vast majority of applicants. If there’s also a hook, I think OP’s odds, in those circumstances, would look pretty good. That said, as @skieurope notes, it’s not a robotic process, and, although the LOR can’t hurt, I would think it’s at best a feather on the scale that solidifies the athletic “2” rating.
OP should not under any circumstances apply REA. @Pheonix17 wrote “I was told that he had 9 likely letters available, 16 spots for an official visit, and that I was 29th on this list of his recruits at that point. Not sure if any of the other athletes from 17th-28th are applying on their own with the aid of his letter of recommendation. I was also told that in recent years of him coaching, he has had 1 or two athletes per year be accepted with the aid of his recommendation. Would this change any of your guys’ opinions?”
What this means is that OP is a second tier athletic recruit. If every one of the top 9 goes elsewhere, there are still 9++ in line behind them…The 1 or 2 accepted with the LOR might have been stellar academically or a legacy that was also a decent athlete…and essentially got in on their own. It wont hurt but it wont really help UNLESS numerous other kids say no…and you move up the list. Unfortunately very few say no to Harvard. This would be more likely at Penn, Dartmouth, Brown who routinely lose top recruits to HYP Stanford etc. My advice is to focus on a school where you are in the top 9.
If Harvard is his first choice, he absolutely should apply SCEA, unless there is another school that he likes that will regard him as an athletic recruit and offer a Likely Letter. But that’s assuming facts not in evidence.
Yes–thanks. I meant IF he wanted to be a recruit and leverage his athletics for admissions some where. His academic stats are excellent it would seem but we dont know anything that makes him/her stand out as a stand alone academic applicant.
OP, 1 or 2 per year out of how many? If he’s doing this for 20 athletes, that yield isn’t terribly impressive.
You haven’t said if the coach is asking you to apply early, or if you’re giving up other options for his limited ‘support’. I certainly wouldn’t pass up other options for this. Your athletic talent probably does have admissions value at other schools. It’s not clear that you’re getting that value at Harvard. But if your heart is set on Harvard, then I’d take the coach up on the offer. It is possible that with your stats a note from the coach makes some minor difference. I sure wouldn’t bet anything on it.
Nice that the coach is being so honest with you. Being 29th on a list seems quite far down to me IMHO. Suggest that if you’re going to apply to Harvard, save the letter of recommendation for the RD round.
Do you have interest from any other coaches? Official visits lined up? Even other schools in the Ivy League (Cornell, Dartmouth, etc)?? You should be having this conversation with each of these coaches and assess your realistic chances. If you get offered a likely letter from one of the other schools, you’d be in much better shape.
Common misconception of the recruited athletes in the Ivy is that they are taking away admissions spots from other non athletes who are far more qualified academically than the recruit. The athletes are competing amongst other recruits, not with the general applicant pool. Harvard sets aside about 230 or so spots for athletes each year. Therefore, the regular non-recruited athletes would not have anything to do with this 230 or so group. So for the coach to say that he will give a letter of support to a non recruited athlete is not going to move that person into the 230 group. With all things being equal between two applicants, his recommendation perhaps might tip the favor in the athlete’s direction, maybe, or maybe not. But the bottom line is the non recruited athlete is competing for the general applicant pool, not with the recruited pool.