Most of the people we know who’ve gotten off of WL have been either athletes filling a spot or full-pay families with legacy or other institutional connections.
Otherwise, WL seems to be a way to keep alumni and desirable high schools placated.
Who cares how big the waitlist is? Every student who accepts a position on a waitlist should just assume they are not going to get off and choose a school that they were accepted. If they get off the waitlist, then it’s a bonus.
Im pretty sure NYU wins the cake this year… They waitlisted 16000 applicants(!) which is 21% of the RD pool… this is a bit crazy I would say
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@Cof22mom with regard to GT, I can tell you from kids I have heard from in the past few years that many fo the kids who accept GT end up staying at their first year school. They go, they make friends, they love it and they stay, I don’t know the actual numbers.
NYU’s waitlist is outrageous. How can you waitlist 16,000?
If a high school is effectively on an auto reject list, wouldn’t it be unethical to convey a false impression that applicants from there are being considered?
Are you talking about Rachel Toor, author of that depressing book, College Confidential?
Yes, I was it is Rachel Toor’s book I was thinking off.
I should have said: ``from a high school that you haven’t admitted from lately. I dont think there are high schools in auto-reject list, at least I don’t recall such a thing from Rachel Toor’s book. But say you get 10 applications from a school and don’t find any worthy of admission. You don’t want to send a message that they are not considering students from this school (and loose applicants for future year). So they put a couple of them in wait-list …
I think with the current rise in tuition and poor economy that this may be a benefit to the long term future of many people. Education is important, but what’s more important is that these young people aren’t saddled with a mountain of debt. Many of them will look back and be thankful they got put on the wait list.
@osuprof: I think your comment offers some insight into why schools waitlist so many.
“You don’t want to send a message that they are not considering students from this school (and loose applicants for future year).”
It’s that last part. Perhaps its all part of an effort to boost admissions numbers and appear more selective even though, as students like @ProfMcGonagall point out, it’s “heartbreaking” to receive so many WLs. Schools are willing to provide false hope and break hearts in order to boost their numbers. Sad.
@Cof22mom I have know 4 students with the GT offer from a couple of different schools and all thought they would use the option but never did. All settled in to the school they went to, made friends, and never took the transfer.
I have read somewhere on cc, I think it was here, that Cornell has also offered a GT after the kid was waitlisted and the WL was closed they toss a GT offer to some.
The whole thing is an unfortunate way to drag this process out.
No, you don’t have to accept it but it stinks none the less and is more like a high stakes mind game. To what end are they dragging these kids along? If someone really wants to attend a school they can transfer through regular channels for transferring at the end of the year.
There needs to be an end in sight of this process each year and that end should be the first week in May. They know the class size by the end of the day on the 1st period. If you are going into June with your back up plan then you clearly need to take a long hard look at the way you do things next year but let this class go and be 100% in to where they planted themselves on the 1st of May. JMO
I guess we were lucky. My son only applied to 4 UC schools. Rejected from 3, waitlisted for 1 -was accepted from the waitlist and is now finishing his sophomore year!
From NPR yesterday: https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=599755974
I think most kids would prefer a spot on a waitlist over a rejection, a slim chance is better than none at all. You see in the news kids getting into like 20 top schools, well they can only attend one, so things do move.
@Mandalorian - there’s nothing wrong with the concept of WLs for truly qualified students, but they should be limited to what the school actually might need as a safety net to fill classes. WLs that eclipse the size of the entire class only serve to add stress to applicants who are already more stressed than they need to be by this crazy process.
It’s the ridiculous size of the WLs that’s the problem. I think students would prefer a straight rejection over a secret lower tier WL offer that the school has no intention of filling.
Can I just say, as the author of that “depressing” book, I was trying to give an unvarnished (though admittedly too snarky) overview of the process. I’ve tried to atone for my unfortunate tone in two subsequent books–one a YA novel about how not getting what you think you want (first choice college) can be a good thing, and more recently, a book on how writing the application essay can–and should–be a process of discovery and even fun. That book was excerpted in The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/education/edlife/college-application-essay-admissions.html.
I mention this not to promote myself, but to say that I regret some of the choices I made in my first book when I was still learning how to write. I have way more sympathy now for both kids and their parents who are going through this process, which becomes more challenging and bruising each year. There are zillions of great schools out there. I teach at a regional public university now and some of my students are as good as those at the Ivies.
Rachel Toor
Very interesting article on the use of waitlists today. https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=599755974
Neither of my children were waitlisted, but I know many students who are currently in this predicament. Very sobering article.
I think the solution is for young people to go back to applying to fewer schools. Ultimately the Common App made it easy to apply to a lot of schools (up to 20!) and colleges have no way to know who will accept their offer. Yield is important to them.
@compmom- I agree kids are applying to too many schools, but with “holistic” admission, it’s a crapshoot. A lot of students can’t afford not to shotgun it for top schools because of their policies.
I know of a kid that was already called off the waitlist at NYU. Isn’t that early??? Are they trying to manipulate their stats?