<p>My friend told me something today in one of our daily college rants...</p>
<p>Right now she is on the waitlist for Stanford. She has legacy, and she's pretty well connected currently (she volunteers at Stanford hospital, her Mom works at the hospital, and her Dad works at Stanford Unv I'm pretty sure...So let's say she's covered there.)</p>
<p>Now her Dad, who is a pretty good source I'd say, is telling her that some schools, like Stanford, are buying into this whole "we have to be the number one university" competition. From what he's been saying, a lot of these schools are putting a nice chunk of students on the waitlist that they'd normally accept and intend to accept eventually. And they are doing this apparently to make the statistics look better. Of course the top colleges want to be able to say "98% of our accepted students were 4.8, 2400 SAT, top 1% students." If they put students on the waitlist who maybe lack in a category, then they can always accept them later, but get to keep their shiny elite statistics.</p>
<p>Now...This is could all just be rumor. And I'm sure everyone will say "Oh no! They'd never do that! That's not how it works at all!"...Except...It does seem like something a school would do to make it look really good. </p>
<p>Has anyone heard anything about this? Any opinions? It sounds like the rumors of a bitter waitlisted person (though my friend isn't really bitter or a huge fan of going to Stanford, she was forced to apply)...</p>
<p>Not saying it's true at all. Not saying I believe it. Just plain curiosity.</p>
<p>Some schools play that game - WUSTL is especially notorious for it. I don't think schools like Stanford resort to that though, especially since once you get to that level (re: HYPSM), schools don't usually accept very many off the waitlist.</p>
<p>colleges around the country are working their numbers. look at the dramatic increase of elite schools accepting the commonapp, the rise in free and preferential applications, the dropping of testing requirements... et cetera. theres really no reason to do any of this other than to increase applications and thus lower acceptance rates.</p>
<p>on the issue of waitlists, schools that are experiencing double digit percentage gains in applicants every year are put in very difficult positions. yield becomes quite hard to predict and one of the worst things you can do is cause a huge housing dilemma because of overenrollment. so you accept fewer students than you think youll need, knowing that you can get people off of the waitlist at 100% yield, while lowering your acceptance rate in the process. im not sure the extent to which colleges would deliberately underadmit to a large degree (it would be quite risky at a lot of schools), but in a general sense it certainly happens.</p>
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Of course the top colleges want to be able to say "98% of our accepted students were 4.8, 2400 SAT, top 1% students." If they put students on the waitlist who maybe lack in a category, then they can always accept them later, but get to keep their shiny elite statistics.
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<p>Don't people they eventually accept of the waitlist count for statistics?</p>
<p>Those that get in off the wait list are going to be counted in the "accepted" %. But the wait list does allow colleges to more closely monitor the accepted %.</p>
<p>All very true. But it could also be for their own person printing/claiming use. They can say "98% of students admitted have a 4.8 GPA" and of course mention in the tiny font that this applies to what they initially admitted. But their "98%" wouldn't be inaccurate, even if in the end, only say 50% of those that attend have the 4.8 because they put on a ton from the waitlist. And if you can claim a 98%, even if it has tiny font attached, who wouldn't want that all over their website?</p>
<p>But that's just a thought. Doesn't of course mean they are doing this.</p>
<p>If a college was using it to game the USNWR stats, for example, it seems they could up their yield by WL-ing a larger group of kids, then accepting off the WL only those kids who have written, had their GCs call, & vowed to come if admitted...</p>