How many people are doing this so I know how many people will be asked from the wait list???
They “over accept” to adjust for this. If their calculation of how many will decline to attend is off, then they will go to the WL.
But they say that they take on average 20% of the people on the wait list so does that mean that they dont adjust their acceptance number enough??
Probably. Supposedly they have some algorithmic way of determining who will say yes % wise…but I imagine it is not the same each year. And maybe WF is very conservative in making the offers? What on earth would they do if they were over by 500!! Yikes. A good way to know is to check last year. One one thread someone said they checked and 100 were taken last year. 0 the year before.
Admissions offices try to calculate yield (percentage of accepted students who actually enroll) to end up with the number of desired students in the freshman class, WITHOUT GOING OVER. So, if they calculate a RD yield of 25% and it turns out to be 30%, then there may not be enough dorm space for the freshman class. If yield is normal, they may take a few people from the wait list. If yield is low, then they take many people from the wait list. If yield is high, no one comes off the wait list. Last year, when Duke won the national championship, yield went up, and they ended up with a freshman class 50 people over capacity; no one came off the wait list.
Luckily, Wake Forest is not in the running for the national championship this year, so they will probably take some people off the wait list. Wait list offers probably begin around May 1.