Annual "Space Still Available" list

<p>bclintonk, those are two different situations. I was specifically referencing the increasing situation where students place more than one deposit before May 1st to lengthen their time to decide and then simply don’t show up on the first day of class without notice to the school that they won’t me matriculating there.</p>

<p>Presumably these schools have already exhausted their wait lists? I suppose they could put many more kids on the wait list, but doing that might ultimately hurt their selectivity if they have to go way down the list.</p>

<p>Really surprised to see Evergreen, Loyola Marymount and Lewis & Clark on that list. More data would give better insight into why they didn’t make their yield. It would seem that fewer parents & students are willing to take on ridiculous amounts of debt.</p>

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<p>Why would it not be? Some schools transfer application deadlines are June 1 and I’ve seen July 1 in one case.</p>

<p>This is not really that big a list of schools, but what does the overall space available mean? Does it mean that there are, right now, more spaces than students? Or are there a bunch of students who didn’t get in anywhere?</p>

<p>Agent99: Evergreen is public, and not expensive.</p>

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<p>Maybe they’ve exhausted their wait lists, or maybe they’re just hoping to find a few more late applicants with better qualifications than the people they’ve still got on their wait lists. Many of these schools have high admit rates and small wait lists to begin with. Just to take Lewis & Clark as an example, in 2011 they enrolled 616 freshmen, but to get there they needed to offer admission to 3,928 of the 5,950 people who applied (66%). That means their yield was 15.7% (I had to double-check my math on the yield because that seemed unbelievably low, but that figure is correct, probably in part because Lewis & Clark doesn’t meet full need). They offered 598 people a place on their wait list; of those, 167 accepted a place on the wait list and 4 ultimately enrolled. </p>

<p>But there’s no telling how many of those who accepted a place on the wait list would have actually enrolled if offered admission. I’d imagine many people accept a place on a wait list to keep their options open, but once they’ve already enrolled and put down a deposit at another school and start firming up their plans to attend, might well turn down an offer to be admitted off the wait list. Or of those on the wait list who still hold out hope of attending, the sobering financial realities that come from being “gapped” in FA when finally offered admission off the wait list might well put an end to those hopes. So a wait list of 167 is going to leave the school with a pretty small margin for error. </p>

<p>And clearly, they’re already dipping deep into the applicant pool if they’re admitting 2 out of every 3 applicants, and needing to assemble a wait list out of who’s left after that. If I were in that position, I’d find it awfully tempting to announce I still had places to fill and re-open the admissions process to anyone who was still looking for a place, even if I still had some people on my wait list.</p>

<p>Ouch! How would that feel to know you were on a wait list and see the school actively soliciting more applications after May 1.</p>

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<p>Yes, I know, I read your earlier post where you were quite clear about the situation you’re describing. I was merely pointing out that “melt” can occur for other reasons, many of them not unethical: the student gets accepted elsewhere off a waitlist, or the student gets sick and is unable to attend, or there’s a family crisis that prevents the student from attending, or the student makes a late decision to take a gap year, or the student gets an unbelievable job offer and decides to forego college, or the student decides the school’s FA offer doesn’t work after all and the student really can’t afford to attend. I’d consider any of these a legitimate reason not to attend, even after the deposit is paid. It still leaves the school in a bit of a bind, which is why schools charge an enrollment deposit and keep the deposit if the student ends up not attending; they want to have some penalty so students don’t take these decisions lightly, but most keep the penalty pretty reasonable. And in all these cases, I’d say the student has an ethical obligation to let the school know that her plans have changed.</p>

<p>I quite agree that the situation you describe, of a student putting down deposits at two or more schools and then just not showing up at the beginning of the term, is unethical. Most schools say putting down deposits at more than one school is grounds for revocation of their offer of admission—though that’s hard to enforce, because there’s no central clearinghouse for information on who has enrolled where. But because there are also perfectly legitimate reasons for “melt,” schools can’t (or don’t want to) adopt stiffer penalties for backing out of an enrollment decision.</p>

<p>Here’s a (partial) list of schools that appeared on NACAC’s list 6 years ago:</p>

<p>ASU
UA
UOregon
Baylor
UDallas
URedlands
Colorado State
Adams State
UHartford
FAU
USF
IIT
Loyola Chi
LSU
St. John’s MD
UMBC
Springfield College
Kettering
MTU
Clarkson
RIT
Warren Wilson
Ohio Wesleyan
University of Cincinnati
Williamette
Mary Washington
Evergreen State</p>

<p>Last I looked they are all still in business. Even Evergreen, which seems to be a regular on this list.</p>

<p>Do you have the full list?</p>

<p>IIT is in the process of growing the undergraduate student body to ~3600 so it will likely be on the list for some time to com.</p>

<p>I know for a fact that Marquette had so many freshmen two years ago that they had to turn some doubles into triples.
And then there is this quote from the Milwaukee paper about all the Wisconsin schools on the NACAC list this year:
“Marquette University routinely accepts applications for transfer students until June 1, said spokesman Andrew Brodzeller. The Jesuit university is still accepting applications for freshmen who want to enroll in the fall, but those spots are on the wait-list, Brodzeller said.”
Confusing, no? Why would you continue to solicit applications just to put them on a wait list, unless you are anticipating melt or lookiing to fill vacancies in the spring?
[Lawrence</a>, Marquette among 210 universities nationwide still accepting fall applications - JSOnline](<a href=“http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/205983791.html]Lawrence”>Lawrence, Marquette among 210 universities nationwide still accepting fall applications)</p>