<p>Hi! So I am a current senior in high school and was recruited by Columbia University. The coach told me that he would be supporting my application, and that I should apply Early Decision. He did not mention anything about a likely letter though, and said that ED results come out on December 15. However, I'm still worried about the chances that I might not be admitted. I had to tell all the other coaches from other schools that were recruiting me that I was no longer interested, and now, though he is supporting my app, I have to wait two months until I am guaranteed admission at Columbia!</p>
<p>I was wondering if anyone knows of athletes who were supported by Ivy League coaches and either were or were not offered admission. Should I be worried?</p>
<p>Congrats, you’ve won the lottery! Our HS has an athlete who got in Columbia the same way and that’s how it works, you go in ED. Failure to do so often means they pass on you and move on to the next person. It’s a way of locking you in without having a letter of intent.</p>
<p>Can they deny you? Of course, but odds are, the coach has vetted your transcript and test scores, otherwise he wouldn’t be wasting his recommendation. They are going to pick your application out of the pile and put it in the accept pile, no further questions asked.</p>
<p>I think you will find an overwhelming majority of folks that have been down this path had a positive outcome. My oldest son was fairly late to Ivy recruiting (baseball) as he focused on other schools. He committed, applied ED and was accepted. Some schools (Ivy, D1 and NESCAC) continued to keep in touch as he was going through that long 6 week wait. I’m not going to lie to you the 6 week wait is a pretty tough and anxious time. My son’s coach had a subtle way of letting him know everything was going to be just fine. </p>
<p>However, when it is over it is pretty exciting. BTW…it won’t matter if you were a Likely Letter recipient or not on the athletic field. My son was a 4 year starter. Coaches use LLs for different purposes. If you can get in ED without a LL then I think that says a lot about you. </p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>PS…If we could do it again, we’d certainly go the LL route (less stressful). But we can’t so we didn’t worry about it. </p>
<p>Natdee123, other knowledgeable folks here can add; but in our limited experience for Ivys - LLs is the surest thing, though they will give that out to the tier1 recruits. we have had similar conversations with ivy’s, some wanted my son to apply ED, but were quiet when asked about how much support they will provide. my son did not apply ED, but i think that in dec/jan timeframe, they will reach back again when they know status of tier 1 recruits. if acads are good, and you are not one of the top recruits, they are wary of using up their LL slots. these are my two cents…</p>
<p>Not to be a bummer, but consider this from Tier I athletics, a very informative site:</p>
<p>Q: “If the coach refuses your request for a Likely Letter or gives a reason you cannot get one, should the athlete be more wary and maybe consider other schools, programs?”</p>
<p>A: “if an Ivy coach asks you to go EA or ED but can’t offer to list you for a Likely Letter, you should definitely be wary. Actually, thank him for being straightforward and telling you that you will not be supported. It makes your decision much easier – absolutely pursue other options.”</p>
<p>The reason for this is that it is at best uncertain whether coaches have any influence with admissions once they’ve used up their allotted LLs. Some believe the answer must be no, because if it were otherwise it would circumvent the Ivy league rules and caps re recruitment of athletes.</p>
<p>Having said that, experienced coaches know what they are doing. Ask very direct and pointed questions, including his experience with candidates having your profile who do not have a LL slot, in order to minimize the chances of an unpleasant suprise. Good luck!</p>
<p>I’m interested in the responses to this question…this is what I was asking on the other thread, namely, is full support equivalent to an offer of a LL? Are some of you saying that full support can exist without the early adcom review and LL procedure?</p>
<p>Just clarifying…because my S would not have accepted a situation like op’s. You end up turning away all your other offers and you don’t have anything definitive. am I confused?</p>
<p>I can’t answer in general, but in my son’s case. He had mid-level D1 offers that he could have gone back to, two Ivy offers and a handful of high academic D3 offers. He had athletic talent and leverage. He knew this, and they knew about the other schools including the other Ivy. ED was not an ideal situation, but it was workable. He had options if it didn’t work out. We went in with eyes open and a plan.</p>
<p>In his case, he didn’t care if he played D1, Ivy or D3. He was most interested in getting into the best engineering program. Baseball was a means to an end to get into a very competitive engineering school. The coach offered ED because he was too late for LL…they were already spoken for and I truly believe my son didn’t need it. For any reason, if he didn’t get into this school we had Plan B (another Ivy) and Plan C (NESCAC) ready to roll. If worse came to worse, my son was willing to forego his sport for his major to apply to two large in-state schools.</p>
<p>So, in my mind it is knowing how much leverage and how much they desire your son’s skills when applying ED. If you are somewhat comfortable with it, by all means do it. We had no choice since we were late the LL party, but it worked out for us and I think it works out for many others too. But you have to know where you stand. JMO. </p>
<p>It can if the coach did not use all of his athletic slots on LLs. I think closer to the NLI date they stop issuing LLs. But coaches may still have open slots in case of an impact recruit who decides to accept at the last moment. It seems Fenway’s son was one such recruit and he received many indications that everything would be OK. If you are not an impact recruit and you do not have a LL - you should worry - unless you have some others important hooks. </p>
<p>Thanks for the input! I hope OP comes back and lets us know how it all worked out. I am just perplexed at the likely letter mechanism. It seems that in some cases you are taking a big risk without it. And in others the coach seems to have leverage even without being able to offer you one.</p>
<p>I am wondering about other situations where my S was not offered support but was told “please apply” repeatedly. I wish I understood the “code!” There was one school where it would have been very tempting to just take a chance and apply, even without the formal support, because the coach was so persistent and the school was so terrific. I did mention that possibility to my S but he is very risk averse and would not consider it.</p>
<p>Good luck to everyone out there waiting to hear! In the OP’s case I hope the coach gives you some positive signals earlier than December!</p>
<p>Hello and thank you for all the helpful responses!
So to clarify a little-- though the coach did not mention that I would receive a likely letter, he did not say that he would not give me one either, if that makes sense. The likely letter was not mentioned in any of our conversations ever, and I did not know that I was supposed to ask about one. (I was not very familiar with how the Ivy League recruiting goes in its final stages-- the other schools I was being recruited by were large D1’s).
The coach was VERY encouraging though. He said that he would be supporting my ED application and that every student he has supported in his six years of coaching has gotten admitted. He literally said that unless I fail a class or get arrested I will be fine. So, I felt relaxed and excited-- UNTIL I started reading about likely letters on college confidential.
Is it possible that he is only giving me partial support or would he have made that more clear when we talked? Do I need to explicitly ask him about a likely letter or is it too late to ask now? I have acceptable grades and SAT scores but I still doubt that I would be Columbia caliber without the full athletic support.
Thanks again for all the info, everyone! </p>
Unless he’s lying to you, I’d take his endorsement as the equivalent of the LL. Frankly, just contact him, say your ED package is ready to go but say you’re curious if a LL will be sent to you before the Dec 15 timeframe. </p>
<p>My two cents…It sounds like everything will be fine. I know that is easy to say now after going through it, but you sound like a good “catch” for the coach and he recognizes this. My son got a positive pre-read and coaches full support in a matter of days when things were moving fast up to Nov 1 deadline… </p>
<p>While you are waiting for the final decision, the coaches aren’t allowed to say anything about whether you are admitted or not until it is official. However, my son’s -position coach would send him emails every now and again with requests about shoe size, jersey size, hat size, the upcoming schedule, roommates, etc… that was his way of telling my son everything way going to be okay. It was a nice touch. He later admitted that he knew my son was in, but he wasn’t allowed to say anything. </p>
<p>We understood the overall risks and created a backup plan. We kept in touch with other schools that had offers or will still showing interest. The other Ivy I mentioned stayed in communication.</p>
<p>LL are great to have but they are not everything. LL don’t always go to the best athlete. Sometimes they go to the athlete that most needs help with Admission, or the athlete that is early to the process that demands it. One of my son’s roommates got a LL, and he was off the team the next year for performance reasons. Coaches have a finite number of LLs, and they’ve got to figure out how to best use them given their recruiting situation that year. I know others will disagree with me but that is fine. Don’t get me wrong, I’d prefer a LL if I was in your situation but there is more than one way to get admitted. Maybe this is the time to bring it up as T26E4 suggests. Maybe the coach hasn’t used one of the LLs or someone that had one has decommitted a week before the deadline. You don’t know unless you ask.</p>
<p>If a LL is not in play, THE most important thing at this time (after your ED application) is your backup plan. Stay in touch with these other programs, and good luck!</p>
<p>Each coach is allowed to support a given number of recruits. Some schools get LLs out to nearly all their supported athletes, but it seems others only use them when they know they are competing against another school for that athlete and feel the need to give strong assurance. </p>
<p>It seems a lot of worry and doubt could be avoided if they just sent the LL. Not to mention an athlete that has that seed of doubt could be lured away by the promise of a sure thing at another school. </p>
<p>OP, my opinion is that it will all work out for you, but as T26E4 said, maybe bring up the subject of LLs with with coach.</p>
<p>Based on post #11, I would contact the other schools and tell them NOT that you are no longer interested, but rather that “The coach told me that he would be supporting my application, and that I should apply Early Decision. He did not mention anything about a likely letter though, and said that ED results come out on December 15.” Don’t interpret for this coach, and don’t tell other coaches that you are not interested if you truly are. It does not help your position with them to have to say that Columbia is your first choice, but being open and honest is probably the best way to go.</p>
<p>First, please come back and tell us how it worked out, good or bad, so the younger athletes can learn and us too.</p>
<p>I think the LL are given to -</p>
<p>1) Athletes that need help as their academics could not get them in.</p>
<p>2) Athletes that are in demand
( trying to lock them up ), ( and here you could have outstanding grades or so-so grades)</p>
<p>3) Athletes that request it.
( and here you could have outstanding grades or so-so grades)</p>
<p>However, you state that coach did the following:
“he would be supporting my ED application and that every student he has supported in his six years of coaching has gotten admitted. He literally said that unless I fail a class or get arrested I will be fine.”
I think that sounds pretty definite and firm. So, I think you are ok.</p>
<p>I do think it was appropriate that you wrote to all other coaches and said you were applying ED to another school. Coaches like the communication and it frees them up to look for someone else.</p>
<p>I don’t think you needed to do this though -
“The coach told me that he would be supporting my application, and that I should apply Early Decision. He did not mention anything about a likely letter though, and said that ED results come out on December 15.”</p>
<p>I think that is too much…</p>
<p>It is obvious if you are applying ED to another school, it’s because you are hoping to play there…</p>
<p>It’s kind of moot at this point, but my S was just made a similar offer from a different Ivy, and in his case, it was communicated that they are only able to “support” six recruits through Admissions, but sometimes are then able to support a 7th, depending on athlete slots used/not used across the university. However, they believed he would qualify on his own merits, and at a minimum, would get a “deferred” from his SCEA app, which they can then have turned into “Accepted” much more easily and so confirm he is in sooner than if he went RD. However, they did say if he didn’t get his EA in by the deadline (it’s going to be close), he could still go RD and if they are able to support one more recruit, they can issue him a LL.</p>
<p>He was just contacted a week ago and offered a spot in next year’s recruiting class, but again as a 7th (it’s for soccer) recruit that they “hope” to be able to support through Admissions, but could not guarantee anything yet. His position also could be positively impacted if they had any problems getting the 6 athletes in that they are already supporting with Admissions.</p>
<p>Does anyone have any experience or insight into the situation described above? Do some “unused” athlete slots become available for other coaches to get one of their athletes in as a “supported” candidate? It sounded like there were a finite number across the university and whatever didn’t get used (including ones that were supported but still didn’t get accepted) were available for other coaches to use to support an addl recruit, particularly ones that didn’t need much assistance anyway.</p>
<p>Obviously, we are still talking with other coaches, and my S does have standing offers with D1 (USAFA and some mid-majors) and D3 (JHU, couple of NESCAC), but if he did get in to this Ivy, he likely would commit there. Just trying to figure out how realistic it is that support can still be given down the road, beyond the group of 6 that had already been submitted and supported.</p>
<p>@cbw123, your wording sounds good regarding telling other coaches that you applied ED at another school. The OP stated he told other coaches he was no longer interested in their programs. I think that is doing way too much interpretation and slamming tight doors that do not need to be slammed. It is really a very different message. By suggesting OP use the exact words he used in this post to College Confidential, I was suggesting he tell what he knows, and not interpret it further. Your words also do that in a simpler, more straightforward way.</p>
<p>Typically the Admissions Office does a pre-read of the academic qualifications of supported athletes. If the pre-read is positive, then unless there are very bad teacher recommendations, or a rude essay, or a criminal conviction, or something similar that appears in the final application, the recruit can be confident of admission</p>
<p>Need to confirm if the pre-read was positive. If there was no pre-read, that’s not a good sign.</p>
<p>Each Ivy decides the total number of athletic slots and divides them up among each team. I suppose it is possible that a coach can not find enough recruits to fill his/her allotment, but then that coach is not going to have good results negotiating for slots the following year. So I think this is rare.</p>
<p>Also, a supported athlete with a positive pre-read could fall by the wayside as described above, but that would be rare too.</p>
<p>Seems to me the coach is saying there is a roster spot if you get in on your own. I think it would be risky to bank on anything more definitive than that</p>
<p>It’s moot at this point because he applied early decision to Joh Hopkins?</p>
<p>"…and in his case, it was communicated that they are only able to “support” six recruits through Admissions, but sometimes are then able to support a 7th, depending on athlete slots used/not used across the university. However, they believed he would qualify on his own merits, and at a minimum, would get a “deferred” from his SCEA app, which they can then have turned into “Accepted” much more easily and so confirm he is in sooner than if he went RD. However, they did say if he didn’t get his EA in by the deadline (it’s going to be close), he could still go RD and if they are able to support one more recruit, they can issue him a LL."</p>
<p>I think it sounds like the coach is saying we are not sure we can support your son, but why doesn’t he try on his own… Risk is all yours, not theirs.</p>
<p>Can you back into the soccer team rooster.<br>
Will be he playing or sitting on the bench? I think that should be a factor in his decision…</p>
<p>How many freshman are on the rooster this year?
I checked out 3 IVYs soccer teams and saw on average 8 kids as freshmen…
This year’s current freshman class at the IVY you are interested in…, did they have walk ons to the team?</p>
</p>