<p>Nice. I have to give credit to that son.</p>
<p>Naive question: wouldn’t there be FA funds available for WL kids from the students who declined admission? </p>
<p>With the large number of colleges I’ve heard IRL and seen on CC that many kids applied to this year (15, 17, 22) it makes sense there would be an increase in use of WLs.</p>
<p>Lol collegechica7, what do you mean by yield protection?</p>
<p>What if UChicago went to an ED policy? Their total number of apps would drop, but their yield would increase and their total accept rate would be driven down. </p>
<p>You bring up the hypothetical of a student applying to Columbia and UChicago early, and then turning down UChicago if a Columbia acceptance comes in the mail. You say, to prevent this from happening too often, UChicago rejects the students that would normally be accepted to protect yield.</p>
<p>What do you call Columbia using an ED policy? There may very well be students out there who have a good chance at Harvard early, but “settle” on Columbia and apply there ED. Isn’t that the same thing? </p>
<p>Again, I’m unclear by what you mean by “yield protection.” If anything, UChicago uses yield protection a bit less because it doesn’t yet use Early Decision, which is the very best way to boost and enhance yield.</p>
<p>OhioMom: Exactly, there is money from the kids who turned down admitted offers. My son received full tuition remission and fees from three of his admitted schools and 50% +/- from some others, so when he selected Boston College, he wrote to the other universities immediately so they could “release” the funds and the admissions spots to other deserving students on the wait lists. (Unlike some reports of students submitting SIRs to multiple universities, he feels that is another unethical move. Fish or cut bait, he said.) I don’t have a problem, per se, with wait lists. The devil, as we say, is in the details, and while my one experience with “DSU” back East is not necessarily the standard, if the institution’s principal goal is to protect yield for its precious USNWR rankings, etc., with no accounting for the humanity behind the methodology used, then our children (and we) will suffer the consequences of circumstances such as I described.</p>
<p>*Naive question: wouldn’t there be FA funds available for WL kids from the students who declined admission? *</p>
<p>Not really.</p>
<p>Schools have models that tell them how much they can “over offer” in grants and aid. So when students reject acceptances there isn’t “extra money.” </p>
<p>So, if a school knows that it can send out frosh FA pkgs with $20 million in grants, and end up with their budgeted $10 million in accepted grants, there is no extra money. If there is a little bit, it’s often put in reserve for those odd years that the models underestimate the numbers.</p>
<p>I was told by my regional counselor that when they pick students from the WL, they’re need-blind for domestic students.</p>
<p>Our D was on 5 waitlists in 2011. She ultimately was admitted to 2 of the 5 schools and enrolled at one of them. It was an extremely stressful and heart wrenching wait/process even though it “worked” for her in the end. The WL wait ruined HS graduation and most of last summer!</p>
<p>I was told by my regional counselor that when they pick students from the WL, they’re need-blind for domestic students</p>
<p>For which school? </p>
<p>many schools are not need-blind for their waitlists. </p>
<p>I can imagine that some of deepest pocket elites might be need-blind for domestic WL students.</p>
<p>State schools such as UC would also offer the same fin aid to wait listed students. My D was wait listed at two schools and told to send supplementary material in support of her continued interest. She sent a post card to one school, and nothing to the second. The second school sent both letters and e-mail up until May 1 telling her it was not too late to join the wait list. The first school came through, but with the sad new that no $ was left to bring the cost down. We are full pay, and I think it only makes sense that first WL offers will go to kids who have not requested FA.</p>
<p>I certainly hope that you are correct. But I think that you are wrong.</p>
<p>Daughter is on waitlist.
National merit scholarship winner.
2330 SAT single sitting.
All 5s on multiple APs
fullpay.</p>
<p>We responded to waitlist offer, sent supplemental letter expressig continued interest.
I think that you are overstating the benefits to the admissions process of being a full pay without a hook for Uchicago and other top 15 or so schools. Plenty of people will sacrifice to come up with the bucks for the chance to send their kids to one of these schools these days.
Will be more than happy to lose the deposit to the school where we sent it.</p>
<p>coprolalia,</p>
<p>It is not the end yet. Maybe your daughter will get in. I do know several girls personally that have weaker numbers than your daughter got in. At first I thought that was because they were girls. But now I don’t know what to think anymore. Maybe UC thinks your daughter is too strong for them?</p>
<p>mom2collegekids, I was told this by the regional counselor for UChicago.</p>
<p>2yuexue, in the case regarding coprolalia, numbers aren’t everything. There’s essays and extracurriculars too.</p>
<p>even tho some of the wait list admissions may be need blind, those students getting off the wait lists may not receive as much preferential packaging…their FA packages may be loan heavy because a lot of the grants are gone (not necessarily true at all schools, but true at some)</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Could that perhaps be because you do not have a solid understanding of how admissions work? Most of your analyses, or musings, show how misinformed you are. I suggest to use the search function to educate yourself. It really is not THAT complicated.</p>
<p>TheBigD,</p>
<p>I know that. We are discussion about the full pay part here. Someone said the full pay kids may have advantages in the WL around and coprolalia is telling us that his D is a full pay but still not off yet. What I was trying to say was “maybe” the full pay will have advantage and just wait…</p>
<p>Exactly, there is money from the kids who turned down admitted offers. My son received full tuition remission and fees from three of his admitted schools and 50% +/- from some others, so when he selected Boston College, he wrote to the other universities immediately so they could “release” the funds and the admissions spots to other deserving students on the wait lists</p>
<p>That’s not the way it works.</p>
<p>Schools do not instantly have an extra spot for a WL child once YOUR child turns down the offer. Schools use their models to know that they need to offer X+ acceptances to get about X to commit to attending. The school has to have tooooo many students turn down their offers for there to be space for the WL.</p>
<p>Same for the money. The school has over-offered by millions. they would need waaay tooo many needy students to turn down offers for them to have extra money to give away. And as mentioned above, when they do end up with a little surplus, they reserve it for a possible year when the numbers swing the other direction.</p>
<p>On JHU’s webpage, it is said very clearly that if no many left to give out, they will not take a student who needs financial aid:</p>
<p>[Wait</a> List Discussion Thread (2012)](<a href=“http://www.hopkins-interactive.com/forums/ask-admissions/wait-list-discussion-thread-(2012)/]Wait”>http://www.hopkins-interactive.com/forums/ask-admissions/wait-list-discussion-thread-(2012)/)</p>
<p>Will this be true for all colleges?</p>
<p>^Some universities are more transparent in their methodologies for wait list, such as JHU; others less so, as in the circumstance I described in an earlier post. Whatever the method, if your child elects to stay on one, understand all of the the +/- of the decision. Several folks have said clearly some of the downsides. JHU, for example, as you pointed out, says they may not have FA and thus will not take you, while the UCs in California do guarantee financial aid (if you qualify, of course).</p>
<p>while the UCs in California do guarantee financial aid (if you qualify, of course).</p>
<p>that’s the part that misleads prospective UC students (even those who aren’t WL). Having “need” doesn’t qualify you for free money. Meeting the thresholds for B&G, Cal Grants, and Pell is what qualifies you. You can have 3 in college and have an EFC of $15k for each kid and you won’t get anything but loans and a gap covered with an offer of Plus.</p>
<p>UChicago deserves accolades for the brilliant way they are playing the admissions game. They subtly reject top drawer talent (not as blatant as washu) this in turn improves yield, which improves rankings, which augments prestige which correlates with an increase in apps, which in turn enhance selectivity. Vicious cycle, but you have to laud the brilliant execution. Chicago is essentially conning students into believing that its increase in yield is due to an increase in prestige. The truth is however, that the increase in yield is due to new yield protection measures that have transformed a school that was essentially a safety for ivy applicants into a coveted undergraduate institution. I wish cornell would resort to such policies to gain traction with applicants but alas we continue to do things the old fashion way. Chicago did what washu could not. It gamed the rankings without developing a negative reputation for doing so in the process. Sheer brilliance from Dean Nondorf, he deserves to be commended. Part of the reason chicago was more successful in pulling this off than washu was, is because chicago started out as a more solid institution. Watching the washu experiment achieve a measure of success allowed chicago’s administrators to fine tune the process to achieve their goals surreptitiously. I’m sure the other colleges are catching onto this new strategy. We will see more yield protection from schools like Dartmouth and Penn in the future.</p>