<p>RMLdad, check out how many students are accepted from the waitlist versus how many were invited to the waitlist
[Colleges</a> Report 2013 Admission Yields and Wait-List Offers - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/college-admits-2013/]Colleges”>Colleges Report 2013 Admission Yields and Wait-List Offers - The New York Times)
When a school like Carnegie Mellon places over 4,000 students on the waitlist but ends up only accepting 40 of them, that’s basically a polite rejection. Sure 40 were admitted, but no university needs to put 4,000+ students on a waitlist.</p>
<p>“Invited to be on the waitlist” and “students actually say OK I agree to be on the waitlist” are two different things. I suspect the second number is much smaller.</p>
<p>I have heard that about half usually accept the waitlist placement.</p>
<p>whenhen - have you read any of the previous postings? In post #35 I agreed with many prior posters that too many applicants are waitlisted.</p>
<p>Placing too many on the waitlist and accepting a tiny percentage from the waitlist are both far different than “polite rejection”. Many highly selective schools accept fewer than 1% of transfer students who apply. Does that mean that all transfer applicants receive polite rejections? Obviously not.</p>
<p>Waitlists are an important tool for adcoms. However, the evidence suggests that adcoms abuse the tool in pursuit of institutional goals.</p>
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<p>There’s some truth to what you say. Some private colleges and universities fill half their class in the ED round. Since their yield on ED admits is close to 100% and half the places in the entering class are then already filled, they can then afford to be much more selective in the RD round, driving down their overall admit rate. And this makes them look that much more attractive to prestige-seeking applicants. It’s true, as OHMomof2 says, that the school already needs to be quite attractive to generate enough ED applicants to make that strategy work, but working the ED round hard is a proven yield management and admit-rate control technique that, once you’ve got it working, tends to be self-reinforcing.</p>
<p>There are other benefits to the school of using ED aggressively. It can be used to lock in recruited athletes, URMs, and other desirable targets. The Penn alumni association apparently advises its members that their offspring will get a legacy preference in the ED round but not in the RD round, perhaps because RD gives the school a second chance to make up for any weakness in the ED admit pool. And although the colleges won’t talk about this, aggressive use of ED probably skews the SES status of their entering class higher, because many lower and middle SES applicants are skittish about ED, thinking they need to shop around for the best FA. ED thus indirectly limits the school’s need-based FA budget.</p>
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I’ve sometimes thought that college could, as a matter of policy, put all applicants meeting minimum requirements on the waitlist. If they did that, nobody would have any illusions about it, and the college would have maximum flexibility to take anybody that met institutional needs.</p>
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<p>Princeton did not have an “unexpected drop” in 2011. I believe that yield was higher than it had been in previous years and hence so few were taken off the waitlist compared to 2010. The big jump in yield came in 2012 because it returned to SCEA admission along with Harvard which also saw a significant rise in yield that year. Ultimately, Princeton over-enrolled in 2012 because of its underestimate and almost immediately closed the waitlist. Obviously, the policy tends to inrease the number of first-choice applicants that are accepted. Of course, this is why ED schools, that have basically 100% yield from those applicants, can manipulate their numbers by deciding what percentage of the class gets admitted this way.</p>
<p>40/4000 = 1.00% = polite rejection
19/1248 = 1.52% = polite rejection</p>
<p>In retrospect - it may be more insulting to put someone on that type of a “wait-list” than just being straightforward with the child. One might even think it cruel.</p>
<p>Not cruel if the applicant knows the odds and since they are published, they can certainly find out.</p>
<p>Waitlisted students obviously need to move forward with a school where they have been accepted and assume the waitlist doesn’t work out 99% of the time. If they don’t want to be on that waitlist, they can refuse it. Perhaps a nice little “so there” back at the college that rejected him/her :)</p>
<p>Cruel when an institution toys with a young person’s hopes, dreams and fears. I feel fortunate that I was never put on a so called “wait-list” that most know is nearly impossible to get off of. </p>
<p>I think unnecessarily stringing along high school students contemplating their place in the world is cruel – even if they know the facts.</p>
<p>Gtown even uses an extended waitlist of 100 people. </p>
<p>That seems just a tad cruel, doesn’t it?</p>
<p>I would have been happier if, instead of waitlisting 2000 people, of which they would accept <50, they simply had a waitlist of 100 applicants, or slightly more if they feared a lower yield.</p>
<p>Well like I said, my S got into his first choice school from the waitlist. Better than a rejection, for sure. I think the 1-2% that ARE accepted from such large lists would say it was worth being placed on it rather than not.</p>
<p>In a world where Curtis accepts 3% of applicants and Harvard 6%, one could say the entire process cruelly toys with hopes and dreams.</p>
<p>This old [url=<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1971/5/13/harvard-admissions-yield-rises-as-class/]Crimson[/url”>Harvard Admissions 'Yield' Rises As Class of 1975 Fills Up Quickly | News | The Harvard Crimson]Crimson[/url</a>] article might be of interest to some. </p>
<p>Evidently, Harvard’s yield was around 80% back in 1971.</p>
<p>OHMomof2 - Congratulations to your son on the great news of his “polite rejection”. [sarcasm font]</p>
<p>Why thanks!</p>
<p>He actually didn’t attend that school once accepted, even though it had been his first choice previously.</p>
<p>So he in-fact rejected the school that “politely rejected” him, in the end, possibly screwing up their waitlist yield numbers :)</p>
<p>I decided that in my mind, I’d think of “waitlisted” = “honorable mention.”</p>
<p>You didn’t win, but you still get recognized. Glass half full, I guess. :)</p>
<p>I like it :)</p>
<p>I think the idea of an honorable mention is Swell! Or, let’s be honest and let the people reading these boards know it is simply a rejection.</p>