Admission news comes early for some

These few were the recipients of likely letters, which the Office of Admission sends out every year beginning Oct. 1. The letter indicates that the student might be admitted when the University releases its admission decisions in late March.

Representatives of the Office of Admission were not available to comment for this story.

The students who receive the letters are largely recruited athletes.

“Athletes receive the most by far,” Jeffrey Durso-Finley, director of college counseling at The Lawrenceville School said in an e-mail. “A few Ivies will ‘likely’ super high-flying students, and some use it for under-represented or minority kids who are going to be admitted, but it’s 90 percent athletes.”

Durso-Finley said that about two or three Lawrenceville students receive likely letters from the University every year; the school regularly sends one of the highest numbers of students to the University.

Not all admitted athletes receive likely letters, but the ones who do receive it after months of contact with University coaches, usually beginning in the summer between their junior and senior years of high school.

During that time, tennis recruits for the Class of 2015 Benjamin Quazzo and Zack McCort were already speaking to head coach Glenn Michibata about the logistics of their college application.

“Princeton was my number-one choice,” Quazzo, a senior at the Latin School of Chicago said in an e-mail, “so after contact with the head tennis coach, I sent him a copy of my ACT and SAT II scores and transcript.”

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Michibata told Quazzo that “as long as there were no red flags that [Quazzo] hadn’t told him about,” Quazzo was “sure to get a likely letter” if he was one of the top two recruits for the team.

Three days after being notified in mid-October that he had a spot, Quazzo submitted his application. In early November, he received a call from the University’s Admission Office notifying him that “they would be sending [the] likely letter that day.”

McCort, who attends The Sagemont School in Weston, Fla. and trains at the Bill Clark Tennis Academy, had a similar experience.

“I made my verbal commitment to the tennis coach in the second-to-last week of October,” McCort said in an e-mail, “and received my likely on Nov. 14, two weeks after I got my application submitted.”

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The University’s financial aid program is need-based, and it does not award athletic or academic scholarships. Although not an official acceptance, the likely letter is a way for the University to deal with highly sought after athletes who may receive scholarship offers from other schools.

“For athletes, it’s the end of the process,” Durso-Finley said. “The likely is part of the commitment relationship between the coach, the admission office and the student.”

He explained that though “students are not required to withdraw their other applications, they certainly should, they are most likely expected to by the coach and we strongly encourage our students to do so — it’s simply the ethical thing to do.”

As the University’s reinstatement of an early admission plan will not go into effect until next year, this year’s likely letters provided much of the same comfort as early action decisions and will possibly result in a higher yield.

“Athletics are a different process,” Durso-Finley added. “Yes, the reciprocal commitment and the receipt of the likely help the process of recruiting. If all goes as planned, it should be a one-to-one relationship between the likely and the matriculation.”

McCourt noted that the likely letter made his “college decision much less strenuous.”

Regardless of the prospective student’s final decision, the likely letter eases the stress of applying to college earlier in the school year.

“Having my college process out of the way before everyone else was a huge relief and took a lot of pressure off of me,” Quazzo said. “In November and December, I watched my friends scramble to send in six to 10 applications, and I was very happy I didn’t have to do that.”