If you know this, and it is now plastered on a popular message board, I guess the hush strategy hasn’t worked so well, has it. Besides, there are about 200 slots per year offered per Ivy, making a total of about 1600 per year. Pretty broad conspiracy they have been cooking up!
I hope others chime in. In the meantime I still believe the following is true, and that there is not a depth chart of tiered support in Ivy recruiting:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/athletic-recruits/1786857-ivy-league-school-or-mit-p4.html
And a soft copy of a likely letter in sophomore year? If this is a draft, not addressed to anyone in particular, just so the recruit can see what a likely letter says, that’s no problem. But if “soft copy of a likely letter” means a likely letter addressed to the recruit and transmitted electronically (that’s what “soft” means) I’m not buying it.
EDIT: I see from some of your other posts that you have a son who is an athlete at Dartmouth. Maybe what you described is how they do it at Dartmouth. I don’t know (although before your post I never would have thought Dartmouth would do things like that) What is the basis of your information that other Ivies do this?