I’ve not seen this happen and yet surely there have been early commits who haven’t been admitted over the years. I don’t think the recruits make a big deal of their grades and scores if they aren’t accepted but just move on, and there will be 10 players lining up to take that spot at an Ivy or other elite program.
If Jane doesn’t get in, she might complain (or her parents will complain) about how unfair it was because she DID get the 30 on the ACT that the coach said was all she needed, but who knows if her grades were not quite there or if there were other problems with the application. Jane will move on to another school. The kids in her own age group will already have committed to schools and they won’t decommit to Princeton because Jane was wronged, some parents of younger kids will be “shocked” and offer sympathy, but when it is time for their own kids to commit to Princeton or Brown or Yale, they’ll still do it even if poor Jane was treated so poorly.
We had two kids (sisters) who were on the early commit list and they didn’t arrive on campus but did play for another school in our conference. Rumor has it the older one didn’t get admitted to our school. Do you think she wanted to publicize why she didn’t get in? We do not think the coach had anything to do with it or any pull to get her admitted. They were both good players and we would have liked them on the team and we were a much better team than where they ended up, but in the end admissions officers rule and a coach is just a coach and can’t grant or promise admission to the school, only a spot on the team.