No.
Personally, I would not feel good about that at all. In your shoes I would be asking how many LL can be given/have been given. And I would not assume acceptance or even expect it. Even if your athlete is 100% competitive in terms of stats. (Which is not to say it wonât happen)
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I have an athlete/child at a Ivy, our student has told us âseveralâ recruits each year do not get LL - even after an official visit and the coach hoping to get the athlete. Many of the kids still apply with soft support and gain admissions. I think it is very important for your child to reiterate to the coach this is their #1 choice program and they plan on applying ED (if true) and what is the coaches thought and are they getting soft support - ie: has the coach walked over to admissions and made sure the application was flagged.
Out of approx 10-12 freshman recruits on my daughterâs team this year -she knows at least 3 were soft support. She also knows several students on the swim team that came in via soft support too. Seems a bit scary and risky to give up another ED oppty, imo - but if it truly is the top choice and the coach is as clear as they can be - then may be worth the potential risk. I would want to know the reason and the coaches record bringing in students this way.
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My take is that passing a pre-read and not being offered a LL at an Ivy means that the student athletes is lower on their recruiting board than other candidates. For example, if a coach only can offer 6 LL in a cycle, this kid is probably 7th or lower on their recruiting board. They might get soft support but nothing is guaranteed.
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Most definitely, but standards for passing the pre-read for an athlete are different than the standards for admission, so being aware of your stats fall in the real pool is important. They should ask what is the coachâs success rate with soft support in the past.
@coffeeat3 can you DM me?
For one sport, we know a couple of kids committed to ivys with scores and GPAs well below the accepted applicantsâ profiles. Do schools actually provide likely letters in these cases? Sport isnât football.
Yes if they passed the pre-read and have full coach support/a slot and nothing changes first part of senior year.
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Just to be clear, typical pattern is positive pre-read, then coach offers support and athlete commits, then an application is submitted and admissions makes the decision. Thatâs when a likely letter is issued.
Sorry if thatâs already obvious. I just want to make sure you werenât expecting a likely letter based on the pre-read (which does happen at some schools, not Ivies).
Has the coach said theyâre fully supporting the recruit but for some reason admissions isnât doing any LLs? Or is this a case of some recruits getting LLs and some not? Iâd be a bit wary of the latter. But Iâd try to understand better from the coach why this is the case.
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It seems there could be 3 reasons for no LL.
The first is the coach has run out of spots and can only offer soft support. In this case, the recruit may want to consider other options for ED/REA from schools that will offer full support, especially if grades/test scores are below the general admitted class median.
Second, there is an issue with either the team AI or the all recruits AI, so the AO is unwilling to commit to a LL until it sees how the applicable AI shakes out. Also not an ideal situation, but better than the first.
Third, the recruit did not get their application in time for the AO to consider the app and process a LL. The recruit should feel relatively safe because barring a disastrous app or things materially changing from what was submitted in the pre-read, the recruit should be accepted ED. But I guess the timing here (ED deadline not past), makes this scenario inapplicable.
In any event, the recruit and probably the parent needs to get a straight answer from the coach, especially if other recruits in the sport are getting LL â what makes you different?
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We know this is not the case since the coach said no LL and we are well ahead of November deadlines.
Yes I mentioned that in the last sentence of that para.
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Sorry!
I agree that the athlete needs to get clarification and not be shy about asking direct questions. Too often kids conflate âIâd love to have youâ with an offer.
I donât care how experienced a coach is but without a LL no coach can predict outcome at these schools in the last few years. No matter how good the stats. Everything is driven my ever changing institutional priorities.
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Yes, and also as most know, it is not just about passing the pre-read. The athlete will still have to end up on the short list for the coaches support, which in the Ivyâs is a Likely Letter. And the coaches only have so many LLs, which can vary greatly by sport. For some sports there are only a few LLs where as the âhelmetâ sports tend to have quite a few more.
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Itâs important to not conflate full coach support/a slot with LLs (for the Ivies.)
The coaches have slots they offer to those recruits who receive the coachâs full support thru the admission process, the coaches are not offering likely letters.
There is a difference, and it can manifest in the example where a recruit who received âsoftâ support receives an LL.
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Sure, but at Ivies, coaches DO use LL language for slots. âI only have x LL to giveâ âI donât have any more LL to offerâ At least that was our experience.
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I know some do, and that can add to the confusion. Recruiting is difficult enough, and then layer on different terminology and well, I get why itâs difficult for recruits and their parents to navigate the process without assistance. In addition to your example, some coaches call soft support âtipsâ.
I have only run into the whole slot/tips think in NESCAC/D3. Regardless, I think most of the time in the Ivy world the mention of LL means full support from the coach, approved by admissions, not an actual piece of paper (or pdf). This does not sound like what the coach has offered @trackisfun1
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Agreed, and that potential recruit should reach out to the coach if they havenât already based in the feedback from posters on this thread over the last few days.
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I would agree, and that was our experience as well. I have heard some talk about coaches providing soft support and tips at Ivies, though from what I had been told and understand, the LLs was the coaches support and they only have so many LLs to offer. A non LL athlete may still be welcome on the team though they are essentially applying unprotected so to speak in the regular admissions pool.
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Neither of the two NESCAC schools my kid was looking at asked for test scores. They passed both prereads and ended up at one of them.