<p>It is getting late, and most Ivys have an ED date of November 1, so the end of next week is the witching hour if ED is a requirement. At least at Princeton, where my son is currently waiting on his letter, the process as explained to us in late September is that each application being supported by the coaching staff is reviewed by an admissions officer (apparently on a sport by sport basis) and then recommendations are made to the director of admissions, who has the final say. I do not know for sure, but I got the distinct impression that each coach gets to send one pack of completed applications in for consideration in October. I believe most of the other Ivys operate similarly. I do know at Princeton at least, certain sports are given priority through that process, apparently based on whether they are November NLI sports (pretty much everyone except football, soccer and track I think). Those dates this year are November 12 through the 19th. As others have said, it is a maddeningly tense time right now. Especially when the director of admissions is not even at the college for a week in the middle of October (not naming any names, of course).</p>
<p>As far as support short of a likely letter, I believe that is violative of the spirit if not the actual wording of the rules within the Ivy Common Agreement. If a coach could give a “nudge” to a kid with median or better stats for the institution without using a likely letter slot on him or her, then the whole likely letter process would be a sham, especially in sports with very few allotted letters. The fact is that in a lot of the smaller sports most of the athletes are recruited at or above the median stats for the class, and if there was a level of legitimate support different than a likely letter there would be little chance of monitoring the athletic admits in the League, which is the primary purpose of the AI. In my son’s specific circumstance, although his grades and test scores are above the median at each school (230 AI) no school recruiting him seriously (at the end of the day 6 of the 8) ever mentioned supporting his application by any means other than requesting a likely letter. In fact, when his pre read came back from Princeton this summer, his coach reported that the admissions officer reviewing the application put a note on his form that he was a good candidate for admission even without a letter. The coach told my son he would have to be crazy to send him through admissions “unprotected”. All this is just a way of saying I would not trust a promise of support that was anything other than a request by the coach to seek a likely letter from admissions. </p>