They send out offers based on an expected yield. For a school like CMU where the reputation is rising, their yield estimates based on previous years is sometimes too low. So they get more students accepting their offers than expected, hence an “accidental” over enrollment.
Thanks.
Yep. Happened to a lot of schools who figured during Covid their yield would be lower than it was. Going to the waitlist more heavily is a good way of being able to have more control over the final number.
1 Like
Exactly. You can almost think of the waitlist as a kind of LD (late decision) round where the yield is very very high. So the schools are almost in complete control, since they know that a kid coming off the waitlist will almost surely accept.
Anyone starting to get off the waitlist, priority or otherwise? TIA.
Nope for me.
My D is actually waitlisted by two schools at CMU. Are there anyone who are in the same situation?
Not sure how they’d do homework prior to SIR because:
1- many students may not have filled SIR until the deadline
2- many students may not have accepted their place on the waiting list until the deadline
How do they choose students in 1 day then? Maybe they write good algorithm for that? Then the essay is not that important then after filtering through by race, ethnicity, gender, region, etc.
I don’t think schools wait until May 1 to collect all updates and start reading them on the 2nd which is today. How would they read more than five thousand updates within a day? They must have been working on the WL behind the scenes just like other schools, in my opinion.
More importantly, according to CMU, anyone who will be taken off the CMU waitlist are those who consider CMU is their first choice. If they are waitlisted at other schools and may also consider them as well, this means CMU is not their first choice. CMU will try to find kids who really want to come so any clues that can support this can help, in my opinion.
My D’s high school counselor said to submit the update asap so the school can have a plenty of time to read/process it. CMU is our top choice and we do not consider any other schools to attend so we did it during the first week when the portal reopened.
This does not mean any updates that were submitted near or on the May 1st will not be considered, but as we really want to attend CMU, there was no reason for us to wait and submit.
“CMU will try to find kids who really want to come so any clues that can support this can help, in my opinion.”
How do they determine it? They said they don’t consider demonstrated interest.
But I agree with you that whoever turned in the waitlist reply form early, his update will be read before May 1.
When I called college, they told to submit the update as close to deadline as possible. This is probably because many students who submit interest in waitlist early, submit it at all colleges, and have not finalized their decision and their interests could change from April 1 to April 30.
1 Like
Additionally, from what I hear, bulk of the waitlist decisions are about shaping the class, i.e. based on race, ethnicity, gender, region, etc, and college won’t know the gaps until all admitted students have filled SIR - May 1.
2 Likes
Hey Guys,
I know some of you have said that you received an email confirming that “you are active on the priority waitlist and the school will contact you from May 3 to May 5”
I opted to be in the priority waitlist, and I submitted both the waitlist REPLY form and waitlist UPDATE form, but I did not receive that email. I submitted the waitlist UPDATE form as soon as it opened.
I did receive an email which says: “Thank you for submitting the Carnegie Mellon University Waiting List Update Form.”
Do you know if this means that I am on the priority waitlist?
Did you check spam? I assumed that this email was sent to everyone who accepted the priority waitlist.
I did check my spam, but I did not get any email regarding my CMU waitlist.
I submitted almost instantly after the forms opened, and I really hope all my forms went through.
If possible, do you remember when you submitted the update form? And how many times you submitted it?
Did you check your portal? What does it say?
My portal just shows that I selected to be kept on the Priority Wait list.
Did you get the waitlist update confirmation email when you submitted the update?
Also, when you received your waitlist decision, did it say that you were placed on their priority waitlist. I understand tat any student placed on the waitlist can accept priority waitlist if CMU is their first choice, but reading messages on decision day it looked like some students were offered priority waitlist while others just waitlist. Just wondering if that determined who got the email last week that they would be informing students starting 5/3.
2 Likes