Choate, Exeter, and SPS

I see a lot of people that were not accepted into Choate, Exeter, and SPS were mostly waitlisted and not rejected. Is this a type of “soft-rejection”?

I am also wondering the same thing. Although, we can find more information not specific to these three schools over here http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-admissions/1300302-the-wait-list.html#latest

Choate is usually very upfront with the reasons for a wait list or rejection if that reason is financial aid availability. Also, consider that some people who are reporting a wait list at any given school may have actually been rejected. Also also consider that for the most famous schools with the most competitive admissions and highest yields, a wait list is a rejection for all but the rare struck-by-lightning-on-the-day-I-was-bitten-by-great-white-shark-after-walking-away-from-a-plane-crash waitlister.

bump

The WL can mean many things. Here are 2 more:

  1. You’re qualified and they would take you if they had more spots.
  2. You’re qualified and they had to take lesser qualified students to meet other athlete/geodiversity/legacy or URM requirements, so they want you to know you are qualified but didn’t have what they needed.

2 above in response #4 should read "equal or lesser qualified" students to meet other...

Am I the only one who found #2 offensive?

“Diversity” candidates are no less qualified. But if I were an AO and got a whiff of arrogance from a kid or a hint that their family might actually believe they are inherently superior to other candidates, I probably wouldn’t admit them.

^^^sometimes they actually are lesser qualified academically, but more qualified in another area, sorry.

sorry folks: sometimes diversity candidates are less qualified (they often have lower SSATs , grades etc) just like legacies, development admits and athletes AS WELL. Many of you seem to think that admissions officers sit around debating niceness and many other things…well they dont. Im not saying that they dont care but it is just not possible or realistic. If they did or COULD deduce what was in an applicants mind then kids wouldn’t get kicked out ROUTINELY from everyone of these schools for sexual misconduct, cheating, sexting, drinking/drugs and so on.

There’s more to being qualified than SSATs and grades. Sonia Sotomayor was snubbed at Princeton for being admitted as a URM. In her memoir, she is quite frank about having much weaker academic preparation than her classmates- and it showed! She got a C on her first paper! Guess what? By the time she graduated, she was at the very top of her graduating class. (And today she is one of Princeton’s most successful graduates!)

I understand that a rejection stings less if you can make up a story about a spot being given to a less qualified candidate because of their status as a minority or their coming from a different state. But that victim mentality will not serve your kid well in the long run. Blaming others or assuming they are less qualified because they are from Colorado or because they are Latino is a temptation to be resisted.

Sometimes it is just bad luck or timing: They needed a tuba player and not a violinist that year.

My take on the waitlists is that kids applying to top boarding schools are a self-selected bunch and thus generally high-performing and qualified to be admitted and succeed at these schools. Supply being quite a bit lower than demand means that many, many qualified students don’t get a spot. But with these schools admitting students for 4 or 5 different grades, and many students reapplying to repeat a grade, reapplications are probably not an insignificant number of total applications every year. I would guess that a waitlisted student is much more like to reapply and schools don’t want to discourage those qualified students from doing so.