What is a Likely Letter?

In the world of Ivy League and Ivy-like recruiting, coaches don’t have the ability to guarantee that a prospective student-athlete will be admitted to their school, even with a coach’s full support. The Likely Letter – similar to but far more definitive than the “pre-read” – is Admissions’ way of leveling the playing field.

During the likely letter process, a coach can ask Admissions to read the recruited athlete’s entire application – essays, recommendations, etc. –  and give a very early decision as to whether the recruit is likely to be accepted. Recruits must submit their entire application in order to be eligible for a likely letter, so most likely letters are issued in October of senior year.

Dartmouth Admissions has a great Glossary of Terms on their website and sums it up nicely: A “likely letter” informs a student that his/her application has been reviewed and the probability of acceptance is high. All Ivy institutions use a small number of likely letters as a way to reassure highly recruited athletes and other outstanding applicants. Most students do not receive likely letters; it’s not the usual path to an acceptance. But if you get one, athlete or not, congratulations are in order!

So, how do you get a likely letter? Well, before jumping in and talking about the likely letter process in detail, let’s recap how coaches assess a recruit’s academic viability…

 

First, let’s define the pre-read…

The pre-read is the first time a coach mentions you to someone in Admissions and gets their input on your admissibility. 

Typically at some point during junior year, Ivy League prospects will take the SAT or ACT. At the end of junior year, I recommend sending an “academic package” email to all coaches that you’ve been in serious communication with. In the email you should include:

• Transcript with all grades from 9th-11th grade
• School Profile
• Screenshots of SAT or ACT scores
• Senior year class schedule

Sometimes coaches will also ask for a writing sample and non-academic resume as well. Don’t send those initially, just be ready to send one if a coach asks for it.

By sending all of the info above, you’re giving a coach everything they need to get an academic pre-read. This is when the coach sends your academic info to their liaison in Admissions and gets initial feedback on your potential admissibility. 

 

When can a pre-read happen? 

At an Ivy League school, the earliest coaches can get an academic pre-read (Princeton calls this “preliminary feedback”) is July 1, so don’t worry if it takes a few weeks after the end of the school year for you to get your final transcript from your guidance counselor. 

 

What is the verdict of a pre-read?

Generally speaking, the academic pre-read comes back in something resembling the following:

• Green light — Admissions says “yes” we think this person looks like a great candidate
• Yellow light — “we have some concerns…”
• Red light — “this candidate is unlikely to be admitted… do not recruit them”

Golf coaches typically get a pre-read on 4-6 recruits. This number can vary significantly by sport and by the number of support spots a coach has in a given year. Coaches only want to put serious candidates in front of their liaison, so if you know that you are getting a pre-read, that’s a good sign that you’re on a coach’s short list.

Based on the feedback from Admissions, coaches will begin to make decisions about which recruits they most want on their team, and begin to make offers.

 

What is “an offer”?

At an Ivy League or Ivy-like school, an “offer” from a coach is an offer to support your application to the school. When you “commit” to a school, you are saying that you are “committing to the application process” at that school — by no means have you been accepted! Admissions still needs to see your application and make a decision as to whether you should be given a place in the class. In recent years, they have become really strict in this regard. One way to get into trouble with Admissions is to say something like “I’m going to Harvard” when you have only been offered a support spot.

 

How does the Likely Letter fit into all of this?

The likely letter process begins after you have committed to an Ivy League or Ivy-like school. A coach has offered to support your application and you have committed to applying to that school. You’ve had a pre-read, and it came back at least reasonably positive (the coach wouldn’t support you otherwise).

However, you are still rolling the dice by applying to that school! Even with the coach’s full support and a positive pre-read, nothing is official not until you have the acceptance letter in your hand.

As a recruited athlete, in all likelihood, you had other options… really great options. But when you commit to one school, you give up those options. And that’s a tough position to be in. And this is why the likely letter exists…

 

Example: My personal Likely Letter experience

Way back when I was getting recruited, I was talking with several Ivy League schools, as well as Georgetown, William & Mary, and Michigan. When it came down to it, I got an offer from Georgetown, which I was psyched about, but it made things really stressful, because I wanted to go to Harvard. 

Knowing what I know now, I’m guessing that my pre-read at Harvard fell into the “yellow” category. I had a lot going for me academically, but a low score on the Reading section of the SAT was probably cause for concern. I am sure Admissions needed to see my full application in order to give the coach any idea of whether I’d be admitted.

But how could I turn down Georgetown without knowing what would happen with Harvard? If things didn’t work out with Harvard, Georgetown was unlikely to still be an option by the time I found out.

I was lucky that the Harvard coach really wanted me, otherwise he might not have decided to take the chance supporting someone who might not be admitted, but he did. He offered to support my application. I turned down the offer from Georgetown (who had told me that I was sure to be admitted) and left a modest scholarship on the table.

I submitted my application to Harvard in late October and my teachers and guidance counselors did their part by also submitting their recommendations right away. Three days later I got a call from someone in Harvard Admissions. 

The purpose of the call was to share the news that the Admission committee had met today, reviewed my application in its entirety, and decided to give me a likely letter — I was “likely to be admitted to Harvard’s class of 2010” and would receive a formal letter in the mail to confirm this.

My likely letter arrived a few days later. It was essentially an acceptance letter, only instead of writing that I “had been admitted” it stated that I was “likely to be admitted”. 

A few months later, in mid-December, I received my official acceptance letter from the Harvard Admissions Office.

Both the likely letter and acceptance letter changed my life — I had a truly outstanding experience attending Harvard and playing on the golf team.

 

The Likely Letter process today

Likely letters are a much more standard practice today than they were in my recruiting era. I didn’t even know that something called a likely letter existed back when I applied. 

Today, coaches can ask Admissions for likely letters for their top recruits, especially if those recruits also get offers from other schools. This is one of the reasons why it’s so helpful to get multiple offers from schools — it’ll make you a better likely letter candidate.

The timeline also makes a little more sense today. Applying in late October doesn’t give you a lot of time to pivot before the early application deadline if you need to. Today, coaches often advise their supported athletes to get their applications submitted in early September, so that Admissions can read the application in early October, during one of the first “likely letter meetings” that the Admissions team holds.

Note: there are restrictions on when Admissions can have likely letter meetings and issue likely letters. The earliest possible date any Ivy League school can issue a likely letter is October 1 of senior year.

 

Other benefits of Likely Letters

In addition to getting the early read on your application, one additional benefit of being put up for a likely letter is that your application is read alongside the applications of other recruited athletes. That’s a way better peer group of applications than the normal pool of applicants at an Ivy League school!

 

How certain is a Likely Letter?

If you get a likely letter, you are almost certain to be accepted. The joke I like to make is that if you get a likely letter, you need to commit a felony or fail a class to not get an acceptance letter. A likely letter is gold!

Here’s Princeton’s take on likely letters:  Likely letters will have the effect of letters of admission, in that as long as the applicant sustains the academic and personal record reflected in the completed application, the institution will send a formal admission offer on the appropriate notification date.

 

Conclusion

A likely letter is a great opportunity for a recruited athlete to have an early read on his or her completed application. Recruited athletes at Ivy League and Ivy-like schools often aren’t able to compare their options side by side, so the likely letter helps level the playing field, allowing recruited athletes to better understand their chances of being admitted before the early application deadline passes.