Are "likely letters" ethical?

AboutTheSame
Thu, 07 Feb 2013 19:59:00 +0000

There’s a lot of anxiety on this site about the dearth of likely letters. It got me wondering. Are they even proper? (Disclosure: D got one in 2009 and it was wonderful to receive, but we’d never heard of them before then – much less worried about not hearing from the College before the official date, and I was really surprised by it and had this same question.) Why have a set date when acceptances go out if schools are going to “accept” people in advance?