Ivy's do not verbally commit, they commit to the admissions process and they are told exactly what they need to score on SAT and or ACT's as well as taking a difficult schedule through senior year - every year kids that had "verbally committed" early do not get accepted.
Most Ivy League coaches will have a very limited number (four or less) golden tickets which allows the coach to have a candidate accepted on the coach's work based on pure athletics.
While you might see this as a complete waiver of academic requirements, the candidate still must pass admissions albeit against a slighly relaxed set of standards. To be more specific, one Ivy League soccer coach in the New England area indicated off the record that an SAT I two-way score of 1280 would clear admissions with a golden ticket although normally a 1400+ would be expected. As we said earlier, a college coach also does not want to set-up a student-athlete for failure in the classroom, particularly in non-revenue generating sports.
The other item of note with Ivy League schools is the "likely letter". Generally targeted at athletes, the "likely letter" is a preadmission commitment from the institution that the student-athlete will likely be accepted with continued academic performance and athletic support from the coach.
