<p>Just curious.</p>
<p>The usual stated purpose is to improve yield.</p>
<p>yield meaning how many applicants actually attend Uchicago compared to number of applicants?</p>
<p>To aggravate and depress everyone who doesn’t receive one.</p>
<p>^ Yield is generally defined as the proportion of accepted students that ultimately choose to attend the school. At the University of Chicago, for instance, about 40% of admitted students end up enrolling. Likely letters are sent to applicants that the admissions office considers relatively unlikely to enroll and desirable to the college for whatever reason, in hopes of enticing them to attend. An article about Penn’s likely letter process can be found [url=<a href=“http://thedp.com/index.php/article/2012/02/penn_targets_prospective_students_with_likely_letter_campaign]here[/url”>http://thedp.com/index.php/article/2012/02/penn_targets_prospective_students_with_likely_letter_campaign]here[/url</a>]; presumably most schools operate similarly. </p>
<p>It should be noted, however, that in nearly all cases (except possibly for Dartmouth) likely letter recipients constitute such a small portion of the admitted class that their acceptance does not mean much about everyone else’s chances. At Chicago for instance, only three students have reported being admitted by likely on the facebook group, and only fifteen have been added since the letters were released on February 24th, suggesting the total number of letters issued is quite small relative to the 3000-odd admission letters issued in the EA and RD rounds.</p>
<p>thanks snipersas</p>
<p>Yep thanks snipersas, and congrats again on getting a likely!</p>