Many of the students seen in these types of stories applied to HBCUs using the Common Black College App, which makes the $20 app available to all 60 or so HBCUs.
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For students with a fee waiver who have a high level (95%+ cost needed) of FinNeed, money isnât an impediment to attending a âtop schoolâ. Many of the the T40 USNWR schools meet the full Financial Need of accepted students. For a pell eligible applicant, money wonât be the reason they donât attend a T30.
Also, for students with that high level of need, fit is far far less important than affordability. Before fit can be used to disqualify a school, we need to know which schools accept and are affordable. Then compare the affordable schools against each other. The tropes that âall Ivies are differentâ or that Amherst is different than Stanford donât really matter for this group of applicants as a whole.
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I donât want to give you any false hope but can your high school give you any guidance on each of the WLs and the history of kids being accepted off of them from your school? Assuming this year (and last year) might be much more difficult to impossible but might be good to know the history.
In the past, we do have a few top colleges (not Ivies but top 20) who have taken kids off the WL from our high school. I think all of them were full pay and highly qualified. The two we know personally wrote LOCI, sent a peer recommendation, another teacher recommendation and had the GC call to say theyâd accept immediately upon an invite. I donât suggest you do all of this for all WL but, if thereâs a favorite school and itâs one last shot, there might not be a downside.
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Oh yes! It was still this way when I sat for the PE exam even though we had computers with autocad and internet, albeit one dial up line for the office. I had to type that sucker, including all my experience on GREEN paper. I had to find green out lol.
Back to the topic. When older S was waitlisted to several top schools in 2016, it didnât even occur to us that he would get off. We considered it a no. I hadnât yet found CC to know otherwise.
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I wish she wanted to do this. I like finality, and rather her be at a little less of a competitive school. I could totally be wrong about it, but NYU just seems more a more competitive student body than my D22âs final 3 choices. I havenât spent enough time investigating and donât want to bother now on the off chance she might get off a WL.
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I agree and I was right there with you typing my application out on a typewriter and I had to use the white-out key to fix my mistakes. We actually had to really think about where we wanted to be. Every school we applied to (and no one I knew applied to more than 4-5 schools, if that) was a school we would have wanted to go and already knew about. This system is making it very easy for kids to to apply anywhere and everywhere, and kids donât even research some of the schools until they are already accepted. It is disrupting the collegeâs ability to accurately determine the yield rate, which is probably having a trickle down effect and causing a tremendous number of waitlisted kids. Something is going to have to change. I wouldnât wish this application season on anyone.
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As a parent of a kid who is waitlisted at one of his top choices, a large state school, itâs so frustrating. The CDS for the last 3-5 years are all over the place so itâs impossible to even try to predict what will happen. When will they found out? Will there be hope like last year (high number off list) or not like other years (5-10%)? Itâs making it really horrible and like a never ending meh situation. There will be a choice before May 1, but honestly it will not be number 1 and itâs super anticlimactic. Itâs definitely taken the joy out of the whole process.
I feel really bad for kids this year and for my junior next year. It was so much easier when we typed those individual college essays⊠we really did have a grasp on where we could go and none of this gaming and guessing and uncertainty existed. Sigh.
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There are certainly many more applications at top schools than there have been in the past. This doesnât mean their will be more on the waitlist. Weâll have to wait for the CDS to see this number. As noted, many schools have put 3,000 students on a waitlist, to accept 1-200, for years. Thereâs really no reason to increase the waitlist number.
Weâre treating waitlist as a pretty hard no. Most schools have offered 5-15% of those on the list. This may increase, but I doubt by much. Send a LOCI where interested, then accept and focus on a school to which a student was accepted. Treat a waitlist as a pleasant surprise, if received.
Last year there wasnât that much movement off the waitlists, but the year before there was a LOT. My D was in the exact same spot last year as your kid enrolling in a school that she never wanted to attend. There was no joy, just one big downer, let down of a time.
Just coming here to say she LOVES her school and is thriving and so happy and itâs been the best fit for her. In retrospect we should have viewed her top choice waitlist as a flat out rejection. This has been said over and over again, but worth repeating. Love the school that loves you. Everything is actually going to work out.
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This is a great reply. Thx! I know my kid will be happy at any of the options. Just frustrating when a school that normally would be a target or safety no longer is. Such a bizarre year and so much uncertainty for so many kids.
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Here is the waitlist size and number taken from the WL for the last 10 years for Cornell.
2012; 3,098; 139
2013; 3,145; 168
2014; 3,143; 96
2015; 3,583; 81
2016; 4,571; 61
2017; 5,714; 75
2018; 6,683; 164
2019; 4,948; 147
2020; 6,750; 190
2021; 7,746; 24
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Oh wow, this brings back a memory for me. My parents were not college grads and couldnât be of much help in the whole applying to college process. My grandmother was not a college grad either, but had been top of her rural high school back in the day, and was so proud and encouraging of my academic accomplishments. She worked as a secretary. When it came time for me to apply (ED, to the 1 school that the Fiske guide from the library called the âbestâ in our state) my grandmother offered to type my application. Said she wanted to do it. She did a beautiful job of course.
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I wonder how this year will compare, with the increase in number of applications per person. One would think that yield rates will suffer because of it, thereby affecting the amount taken from the WL.
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This is the theory & one would surmise itâs even more true at the lower tier (T50 and below schools) b/c so many kids cast such wide and numerous nets. But who knows, maybe schools took this into account after last year?
There may be movement on the wait list from a large state school, since most good students apply to their in-state flagship as their academic and financial safety, but donât wind up there. If he were waiting on HYPSM, Iâd say send a LOCI and have the guidance counselor call, and then forget about it, but if heâs waiting on a big state school, especially if itâs not Berkeley, Michigan, Chapel Hill, or the like, he might get a nice surprise. He should send the LOCI and have his guidance counselor call the admissions office to tell them how they are his absolute first choice dream school, and if they take him from the wait list, heâs definitely enrolling.
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Hereâs hoping!!!
Most of you all probably know this but I still see comments on CC like âmy D declined her spot at X school so I hope that gets someone else inâ. Thatâs not how it works. The colleges expect a certain yield from RD - most expect a LOT of kids to decline and thatâs built into their model. Itâs only when their yield in RD is less than planned that there is movement on WL.
And, last year we thought for SURE there would be movement on WL. So many WL that we all thought colleges must have accepted fewer kids to be conservative and then would go to WL. What happened instead was that many schools were overenrolled. Once the 2021 parents learned that, we thought kids must have double deposited. How could so many top schools be overenrolled? Kids can only each go to one school so, by mid-summer, anyone who double deposited will have to drop one of those schools, right? (Of course double depositing is not allowed but that theory was out there last year.)
Well, we didnât see kids pulling out of colleges in July either and WL really did not move much if at all.
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Yes, exactly this! I was just explaining this to someone yesterday. Itâs not like as each kid declines their offer, someone moves off the waitlist. The schools have an expected yield rate and make enough offers to account for that. I think last year they were dealing with all those kids who had taken a year off b/c of covid and it caused the over enrollment, but I did read that this year they were more conservative in making offers as a result. And so many kids applied to more schools than usual which is going to mess with the yield rates once again. My D22 applied to 9 schools, but her friends applies to dozens. The acceptance rates are at record lows, and next year will be another blitz of applications. I hope this madness stops in time for my S29.
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I wished theyâd come up with a prioritization ranking/matching system like medical school residency programs. Itâs not as though we donât have the computer ability to do this as a society.
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Iâve often thought the same, and this is what thecQuestbridge match does. And that is how many selective schools build the core of the FGLI cohort in the ED round.
But with the WL, itâs so much more complicated. Each kid checks several boxes â gender, geography, eCs, expected major, ability to pay, etc. So when there are holes to be filled, itâs about balancing all of those. They might want FP girls interested in STEM. But not from the northeast. Itâs a heightened version of what happens in the RD round at schools that accept half the class ED.
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