Is this a good sign?

Telluric
Fri, 16 Feb 2018 17:26:42 +0000

Generally speaking, being contacted directly by an admissions officer for something specific like a writing sample or more information for one of your prizes, pieces of writing, etc. - is definitely a good sign. I agree with @jzducol, I suspect they may have requested the writing piece and LOR because they’d like to flesh out your story more before they present you at committee meetings - which would suggest you’re definitely “in the running” so to speak. If you weren’t, they wouldn’t be so interested.

I know one person in my grade at Harvard who was similarly contacted by an AO - he had mentioned a piece of poetry he had written that won several major prizes and was later published, and was asked by the AO to send it in for consideration along with more details - and obviously was later accepted.