@Flurite, actually, for the top schools, you don’t have a very respectable shot during RD when admit rates are single digits.
In any case, you want to achieve your selfish goals (compare fin aid packages and choose) but the schools also want to acheive their selfish goals (fill their student body with high quality students who have them as their first choice and lower admit rates).
Call it unfair if you like (the whole American college admission system is unfair; it’s what you’d expect from a capitalistic marketplace, in fact), but schools want to offer only those kids who will go there. I mean, if you’re on the WL, by definition, you’re not that school’s first choice. . .
@Flurite , everyone here is sensitive to and has empathy for students in your position navigating these un-mappable waters…
but…
I think this answers your question – CMU is trying to ensure students don’t prevent them from quickly filling their few slots with kids that really want to be there. Seems like a fair trade, and I think many would agree with @HRSMom and @PurpleTitan that’s it is similar to a “waitlist ED”.
If they charged you non-refundable $$$ just to be on the “priority waitlist” with no guarantee, I think everyone would agree that would be highly unfair.
I’m not calling the ED/RD process unfair. Your opinion of “very respectable shot during RD” might vary with mine, but the fact that schools typically fill half of their classes with ED and then go to RD is a reasonably legitimate practice. You may whine and complain since you probably have a child that was negatively affected by this, but this is not the same scenario as the priority waitlist situation.
No school looks to fill an entire class off of ED and not give the RD pool a chance. That is exactly what the priority waitlist does.
I do not have any opinion on whether its fair or not, so I don’t know why you’re insinuating that, but the priority waitlist is basically a “money grab” in every sense of that term. Right or wrong, I don’t care.
Also, though your last sentence is technically correct, every top school will intentionally lower admit rates, add more to the waitlist, and then fill spots accordingly. It works in every best interest of the college, and colleges NEED waitlists.
I am quite in touch with the waitlist game considering that my college decision came down to numerous waitlist acceptances.
Anyway, how many times do I have to explain this? The priority waitlist situation is NOT comparable to ED. No school fills EVERY SINGLE ONE OF ITS SEATS through ED. They will take kids from RD. This is NOT the case with priority waitlist. CMU will fill all of its remaining seats through priority status FIRST, then if they still haven’t filled all of its seats, then they will go to the non-priority status.
Keep in mind, I do not know of anybody who has gotten off the non priority waitlist.
Honestly, I’m not sure why all the parents here upvote each other’s comments, but if you guys could just read some of my posts, that’d be great.
Actually, the priority WL is nothing like filling using only ED. Once you get down to WL time, all bets are off. The class is full, so unless someone drops, there is no issue. There are no more chances bc the game is over.
Now it is all practical stuff. They want to avoid the cascading problem created by WL acceptance. They also want to end the process and have to keep moving on to the next person, wait a week for them to say no, call the next, etc.
By WL, you’ve already had up to 2 shots at it (ED and RD). I don’t think it is unfair to make anyone at that point put their money down. ESP since all the kids say you are their #1 and if chosen you will come…(unless I get off a better WL).
Your attitude and comments are uncalled for. No one has been rude to you. I would edit that post again if you still have time.
Everyone understands your point. Many experienced adults (excluding myself from that qualification) disagree with you. Personally, when multiple people disagree with me, it at least makes me stop and think “Hey, maybe I am wrong…”
Ok, where in the world did I say whether the priority waitlist was fair or not? That is not the point of my discussion. Do you guys read my posts? I’m asking you to really read my posts here guys.
I am saying that the priority waitlist is a money grab.
Also, your first paragraph is not correct in practice. As I said, before…
“every top school will intentionally lower admit rates, add more to the waitlist, and then fill spots accordingly. It works in every best interest of the college, and colleges NEED waitlists.”
Usually, the class is NOT full, and they are going to fill it up through the waitlist. This works in every best interest for the college.
Well this is a forum, so if my “attitude” is a problem, then I hope you can look past it. I have only urgently requested that you read my posts (or re-read them for that matter). I am a little annoyed by the fact that you guys upvote each other’s posts when I clearly respond to them.
My qualifications: I was waitlisted by over half of the schools I applied to last year. I am a freshmen in a college that I got accepted off the waitlist at. I was also offered priority waitlist status at CMU. I received numerous waitlist offers. If there is anyone that can talk about waitlist admissions, I sincerely believe that that would be me.
I’m not sure what the upvoting thing is. Forgive me, I’m kind of old. Are you talking about Like or Helpful? That just means we agree with that person. Not that I think you didn’t respond. Am I misunderstanding?
The PWL certainly is not fair to those who cannot commit. That I agree with.
Yes, that’s exactly my point when I say it’s a “money grab.” However, it is not comparable to the ED/RD situation, which I believe is reasonably legitimate, since the RD pool gets a shot.
Hopefully, we are now at an understanding.
My problem is that you guys are agreeing with each other seemingly only because they are your peers. I am clearly calling them out on things that they mention that are misled or even downright incorrect, yet you guys are still “agreeing” with them.
Well yes, it’s fine if they disagree, but they’re agreeing with misled and incorrect information. Upvoting is, as you mentioned, “liking” or deeming a comment “helpful.” At least in reddit terminology.
I think it is always unfair when $ gets in the way. But it is a fact of life, unfortunately.
Since we are clarifying, I wonder, since you are saying money grab, how many get off the WL and then de-commit, losing the money? I presume that is what you mean by money grab. If not, and by money grab you mean just pulling full pay kids off the WL, then yes, I would agree this is probably part of their purpose. Many schools do that.
Nothing wrong with passively favoring rich kids. Last year, nobody got off any waitlist (actually I think maybe 4 did at SCS). The year before, I think a total of 30 got off out of all their schools. Their CDS has all this info.
I say it’s a money grab because in order to have a greater than 0% chance of getting into CMU off the waitlist, you need to commit to priority. However, this is not a real commitment. Remember that you can forfeit a deposit anytime you want and commit to a different school without the ramifications of abandoning a contract, like in the ED process (once again, these two things are not really comparable).
In this way, CMU can just take any kid off of its priority waitlist, get money from the automatic deposit that the kid committed to, and even if the kid decides that he doesn’t want to go to CMU because he has another waitlist offer, they still keep the deposit money.
From the Carnegie Mellon University 2016-17 Common Data Set
Number of qualified applicants offered a place on waitng list: 3,809
Number of waitlisted students who accepted a place on the list: 1,942
Number of waitlisted students admitted: 7
Is your waitng list ranked? Yes
If yes, do you release that informaton to students? No
Do you release that informaton to school counselors? By request
I do have a question: Does the deposit demand from students accepted off the waiting list come before students who are accepted other ways?