Are "likely letters" ethical?

texaspg
Sat, 09 Feb 2013 12:48:23 +0000

Each school seems to have a different reason for issuing likely letters for non-athletes.

I believe most if not all of them issue one if they find some major scholarship recipient in the midst (there are only so many 50k to 100k scholarship winners in each batch).

Yale seems to issue a bunch for STEM each year because this is their new focus.

Columbia issues them when they identify who they want to name as their scholars in each area and may be more when they find more scholars than they can accept but find them admit worthy.

Penn likes to identify some top students applying to each school and send out letters with a lot of hoopla. They usually have a video on the website with song and dance if I am not mistaken.

Dartmouth - not sure if they have any specific policies other than just telling some people upfront to increase the yield.

Not so sure about academic likelies at other Ivies.