Harvard's Unofficial Early Admissions Process

avshockeyw
Thu, 20 Jan 2011 15:06:00 +0000

Because Harvard does not have an official early admissions process, and because Harvard (along with all Ivies) is not allowed to officially recruit athletes, that is, award athletic scholarships, etc., they mainly use likely letters instead to help in the admissions process for athletes. Athletic scholarships or invitations extended to athletes from other schools often have a deadline that is much earlier than the April 1st decision date of the Ivy League, meaning that even if an athlete applies to Harvard and gets accepted, s/he may not be able to take advantage of that acceptance because they already committed to another school. In response to this mismatch of offer and response dates, Harvard and the other Ivies use likely letters to let athletes know that they will likely have a spot at the school, so the athlete can compare offers for themselves.

That being said, a small number of academic likelies are given out each year, but these are extremely rare, and the majority of likely letters do go to recruited athletes.