A "likely letter"

A very thin envelope arrived for Eldest today. It was from the big college down the street. I opened it, thinking with a shock that perhaps we'd forgotten to submit some portion of the application; admissions decisions aren't due for more than a month.

But it was from the admissions office. It said that Eldest was a great candidate, and though she wasn't really admitted yet, if she doesn't mess up big time between now and March 31, she can expect to receive good news when admissions are announced.

Uh... oh... huh?! Hey, that's great!

I had to hunt around on College Confidential for a while to find out that this kind of psst!-we-want-you notice is called a Likely Letter. I never knew such a thing existed. Apparently Likely Letters are usually sent by schools where there's no official sports recruiting to let athletes know ahead of time that they're in. Athletics aren't Eldest's forte -- Andrew claims that on his side of the family the most rigorous sport ever was turning the pages of a book -- so we're a bit mystified by this piece of good news. But hey, it is good news!