I still cannot figure out why it would make it harder to get in just because kids are applying to 12+ schools. Each student can still only take one seat in the Fall. There must be an increase in the number of total applicants.
“I still cannot figure out why it would make it harder to get in just because kids are applying to 12+ schools. Each student can still only take one seat in the Fall. There must be an increase in the number of total applicants.”
There is, but I don’t think Internationals are the main cause of the increase in applications.
Historically, the top colleges admitted students based largely on relationships - legacies, feeder schools. In the last few years there has been a push to open up top colleges to all high-potential students, even if their parents aren’t connected or they’re graduating from a troubled school that has never before sent a kid to a top college. Ten years ago, straight A students from a distant rural area might not even know the names of the top 10 USNWR colleges much less think of applying to them, but now with the internet, colleges marketing directly to students and targeted outreach, those students are now applying.
While one one hand we hear about the elite private high school counselor in post #79 finding that her students are having more trouble being admitted, there’s another story from rural Mississippi for example where a student just got admitted to a top 10 college for the first time in that school’s history. New England boarding school headmasters no longer call Harvard to arrange which students from their graduating class Harvard will take; on the other hand students from distant places now have a chance.
Again, as with so many of the discussion on CC, some of these issues are highly regional. In regions where students used to have an “in” with the local selective colleges, those students are now competing against a huge pool of students from other places that never applied in the past or didn’t have a shot even if they did.
“I still cannot figure out why it would make it harder to get in just because kids are applying to 12+ schools. Each student can still only take one seat in the Fall. There must be an increase in the number of total applicants.”
Same number of students and same number of places…call it 3.5 mill. Total number of applications 7 per student, 24.5 million applications, 20 apps per student, 70 million applications, how are you meant to see the wood from the trees.
Using a cheesy analogy. There are certain number of fish in a pond (places) in a ever expanding pond (applications)., or you get a limited number of shots in a barrel at the same amount of fish.
Limiting the number of app’s concentrates both the student and universities to serious candidates only rather than speculative applications clogging up the system resulting in wait lists larger than the incoming class (particularly prevalent at the top 50 schools). The current system is a massively inefficient.
Don’t expect the universities to change, the larger the pool the better for their business model. I foresee high schools just saying enough is enough, I expect their resources are spread thinner and thinner with increasing apps.
I have never understood waitlists. DD was waitlisted at the university she eventually matriculated after they took her off the waitlist. And then graduated Summa Cum Laude. The why she wasn’t accepted in the first place was not evident given that scenario.
There is another side to this, in regards to the use of WL for legacy courtesy WL.
My S2 applied to both parents alma maters, but neither was among his top choices.
In both cases, parents studied at large unis, with tiny engineering colleges.
Son wanted engineering, applied to some top tech schools, not many generic large unis.
Not sure if the colleges see in common app where else you apply, but if they do, it was obvious what he was truly leaning towards. Also did no official tour of one of them, might be some demonstrated interest issue.
Alumni can be good reps for the school, but could oversell to their own kids, pressuring them to make same familiar choices they did. In our case, mom’s college was most competitive of our very low cost state campuses.
In Dad’s case, loved my college, couldn’t understand how it wouldn’t be anyone’s first choice 
Kid applied because we pressured him, he got WL at both.
And even though kid was ok, I was pissed at my alma mater.
But in the end, I realize they have very few spots in engineering at these two colleges,
a huge number of applicants for engineering, and my son not showing much interest.
Result not surprising, just makes me laugh when I get donation requests now.
Things are just not the same as they were for us. The only decision for most people I knew was Michigan or Michigan State. If you had to stay home and work then community College or Wayne State. You only applied to 1-2 colleges total. Those days are long gone. 
Unless one applied to and accepted in the EA/ED round, or only apply to safety school(s), it is very unlikely one would only apply to 1-2 schools these days.
On the accuracy of the OP article or lack thereof, the Middlebury waitlist numbers came from CDS 2016-17, or Class of 2020, which was not last year, but the year before that (freshmen fall 2016). While the article notes that 1316 were offered a place on the waitlist but leaves out the fact that 561 accepted the spot on the waitlist. It may not matter much, but I find it sloppy, albeit possibly on the part of Quinn, although the author didn’t bother to confirm.
Number of WL is out of control (high and higher)
*Number of Applicants is out of control (sky high).
Number of yield at many schools is out of control (low and lower).
* Number of high school graduates (lower…)
***** Number of total spots at competitive colleges (stable… slightly higher)
This is the kind of social waste the educated people should work to solve. This is where the leading institutions should be the leaders.
Allow each students one ED1 in Nov., one ED2 in Jan., and three RA in March… and after that, enter the rest into a general pool for all colleges/students to match.
WAIT LISTS FOR SOME EASTERN STEM SCHOOLS:
CMU 2834 applicants on list, 4 admitted, class size 1,676;
Georgia Tech 2,267 on list, 470 admitted, class size 2,858;
Lehigh 2799 on list, 53 admitted, class size 1,234 (was that by design?);
RPI 2,420 on list, 4 admitted, class size 1,691;
VPI 2,404 on list, 0 admitted, class size 6,832;
WPI 1,519 applicants on list, 0 admitted, class size 1,124
WL students can learn a lot by looking up the Common Data Set (CDS) reports which are available on many university websites. The above numbers were taken from those sources. I thought it was an eyeopener.
It is out of hand. Students need a better indication of their odds. EA admission rates may be better than RD rates. It appears this is not just a STEM problem.
It seems to me that too many students are applying to too many schools thanks to the common application. Universities outside of the HYP groupings want students motivated for their programs as they contribute to the team morale which contributes the overall performance of the student body.
A problem arises when many students line up for HYP like flies to the fire and do not spend the time developing a better understanding and appreciation of their range of options. Why apply to six HYPs and end up on WL with six viable second choices that they were never interested in in the first place.
We need better informed advising and less celebrity gossip! Who wants to be married to the spouse you knew wanted to be married to someone else? You?
@frozencustard From what I’ve been reading on CC, many do take it seriously. There are some very serious students who get on these go nowhere WL It bothers me to think that there are freshmen disgruntled with their bronze metals while some highly qualified and motivated student is wait listed. Athletes (and spouses) know this does not make for a good team.
Are they applying to too many schools, or too many of the same schools? There are 3,000 colleges in the US. Maybe people need to start casting a broader net.
I want to pose a theoretical (and admittedly argumentative) question, especially to those who find no fault with the growing size of waitlists: why reject students at all; why not just have two possible outcomes for all applicants - accepts and WLs?
@ekdad212 - theoretically every student from the WL is qualified and a student that the college would like to have attend. That is not true of the applicants who are rejected. So that’s a good reason to have a WL and denied categories.
As to whether the wait list size is too large… depends on the frame of reference. If you’re viewing the issue as a student who desperately wants to go to a particular college then the large size of many WLs essentially means you have to treat a WL as a denial. But if you’re viewing the WL as a college who has to assemble a certain size and type of class in the face of growing uncertainty, then large WLs are a necessary evil.
Not necessarily @milee30. As others have pointed out, in reality some school carry multiple WLs. Some are what they consider truly qualified students, while others are consolation prizes for children of alumni, etc., but not necessarily truly qualified.
My point is that if WLs are growing to include kids that are not truly qualified, then why not just include everyone? The school will secretly prioritize the WL so that only truly qualified kids ever get an offer, but if there is no down side to offering kids a spot on the WL, as some people feel, then it can be argued that no one should ever receive a rejection letter.
I don’t agree with that BTW, but it is a fair argument. It’s like never cutting any kid from a Little League team. You’d have a team with 9 starters and 450 bench warmers, waving pennants.
“450 bench warmers, waving pennants”
Given how colleges use the WL today - and most of that information such as size and historic # eventually taken off the list is publicly available - then only idiots and those who were willingly self-deluded would sit on the bench and wave the school pennant. The others would be figuring out which other college to attend, how to spend their gap year or how to start another noncollege endeavor.
It is what it is. We know what the WL situation is. Whether we like it or not, it just is. We can waste our time and energy railing against that and other immutable things or we can help our kids to understand the reality of the situation and move on with their lives.
I agree holding out for a waitlist is a bad idea. But some people will be pleasantly surprised somewhere…but let it be a surprise and move on is the way to go.
Not to ask a question with a somewhat obvious answer, but do you guys think some colleges have a list ready of who they will extend offers to as soon as space becomes available (so like the definites) and then another list of kids that will not get offers, but deserved the “waitlist” because they had strong applications (or something else) and they have no shot at ever getting off of the list?
Lets just say why my friends son was accepted off the wait list at ND a couple of years ago with below ave stats for ND, it did not go unnoticed he was full pay.
@collegemomjam I would sorta think so. Sorta like in sports, the next one up, type of mentality. I would think they would have some organized computerized way of knowing who will replace the kids not committing. Saying that… Even though you can’t find out your place on the wait list (don’t think so). What does the school tell number 9,999 out of 10,000 kids on the wait list? I would hope if they only have 100 spots left that they would let everyone outside that range know quickly. We went through this last year with another school. My son didn’t really care about the school that much. I think we liked it more to be honest. He doesn’t ever remember getting a rejection email /portal or letter after being on the wait list. For all we know he could still be on that wait list…
Interesting @elguapo1 about the ND kid…I am sure the lack of need for money helped. Despite ND’s huge endowment, they still need some kids that can pay the full sticker price! I’m sure they aren’t the only ones. In fact, I think there is a published list somewhere about which schools are not need blind for wait lists. Makes sense and I think they should be transparent about it. f
Thanks for you thoughts @knowstuff
I seem to remember my daughter, who was waitlisted at Wake Forest (despite getting into some more selective schools) getting a postcard to fill out indicating how long she was willing to wait…so they had boxes to check like May, June, July, etc. I guess that’s an interesting way to handle it. I also think they maybe were trying to figure out if she was serious about the school. She ended up declining her spot on the waitlist because she had other offers she preferred…so maybe they made the right call waitlisting her. They may have sensed this.
My comment about not caring about the size of the waitlist is about the attitude the waitlisted student should have about it, not about the university’s reason for waitlisting the student. It just doesn’t matter the size of the waitlist as long as the student goes in with the attitude that they only have a very small chance of getting off the waitlist and they should get on to business of selecting a school where they will be happy.
And for those who complain that the waitlist student will be full pay, well, of course. The university needs revenue in order to provide the services to their students. Unless the university has an endowment in the billions, they simply cannot provide full merit/financial aid to everyone. It is up to each family to decide what they are willing to pay. If that doesn’t match with the package, then it is time to move on.