<p>Hey guys so I just got wait listed at Boston College, where I thought I would really get into but ended not getting into. Anyways I have two more colleges I'm waiting to hear back from which are Georgetown and Notre Dame. In my opinion I believe Gtwn and ND are harder to get into than in to Boston College. So I guess what I am trying to say is that is there any chance of me getting into GTWN or ND, even if I got wait listed at a school that is easier to get into? Do you know of anyone who has been denied/wait listed to a school they believed was easier to get into, and then got accepted at a harder school?</p>
<p>I don’t know if this will make you feel better but it may. College admissions are very random. Acceptance can come down to any number of things. My DS has been accepted to Washington University in St. Louis, University of Florida (honors invite), Northeastern (with the highest Dean’s Scholarship), Boston University (as a Presidential Scholar) and received a likely letter from William and Mary. He is still waiting on U. Michigan (deferred EA), Carnegie Mellon and Duke. He was rejected from Vanderbilt and UNC Chapel Hill. </p>
<p>If you go by the U.S. News rankings, WashU (where he will likely be attending) at #13 or 14 is ranked higher than the schools he was rejected from. So, yes, you definitely can get into a harder school and should keep your hopes up! </p>
<p>Good Luck.</p>
<p>I am curious to know what happened with GT and ND.</p>
<p>Sent from my Desire HD using CC</p>
<p>Denied at UT and Rice, waitlisted at Baylor. Got into Penn</p>
<p>Denied into Rice, got into Columbia/Brown/Penn/Cornell</p>
<p>The last posts have been only incredibly selective schools, it’s no surpise that they were rejected by some schools and admitted some slightly higher ranked/selective ones. I was waitlisted at Reed - 35% (and Amherst - 12% Bowdoin - 16% and Pomona - 13%) and admitted to UChicago - 13%. Reed seems like the odd one in my waitlist group, but it has a self-selective group of applicants and really values writing ability. Each school is different and has different needs, so your acceptances depend on that, not admission rates or rankings.</p>
<p>I have a friend who was accepted to Dartmouth but rejected from Gettysburg College. She was an exceptional student. I asked a teacher why he thinks that happened to her and he said its all about stats. Schools look better if they have a better admit rate (those that are accepted and choose to enroll). If Gettysburg accepted her, knowing she would get into some better schools b/c of her numbers, then they knew she would probably refuse to enroll. So, if they accept a lot of top kids to their school, a lot of them may not enroll, thus lowering their admit rate. I hope you understand.
So sometimes it isn’t the student… it’s all about the college’s reputation (in my teacher’s opinion).</p>
<p>^your post made no sense, sorry. You mixed up admit rate with yield rate. I think you meant that a school like Gettysburg may use what many angry people call Tufts’ syndrome, they do not accept the top students but lower students who are more likely to matriculate. This will hopefully raise a schools yield rate (the number of admitted students who enroll / all admitted students). With a larger percentage of the admitted students actually enrolling, a school needs to accept a lesser amount of applicants and so drops its acceptance rate. Often times a school with a low yield will admit students based on interest an applicant has for the school, and so lower stat students may be admitted over more qualified students who showed no interest. This does happen at some schools, but likely not very often at schools like Tufts or WashU where they have so many qualified applicants who show interest.</p>
<p>There’s also the issue of fit. A school without a history of attracting 4.0/2400 applicants may not have the curriculum to stimulate them, or already know that they always transfer out, or recognize the unnecessary need of using the school as a safety. Sometimes there’s no point in wasting the acceptance effort if a school has good reason to believe that matriculation is very unlikely or inappropriate.</p>
<p>Waste the “acceptance effort”? What effort? The school sends a piece of mail… Unless you mean the effort to raise its acceptance rate.</p>
<p>You never know what could happen. I have a friend who got denied to all schools (even safety) except for harvard lol.</p>
<p>Rejected from UCB, USC and was accepted to Harvard, from the NYtimes.
[Harvard</a> May Be a Long Shot, but Even the Lottery Has a Winner - NYTimes.com](<a href=“Harvard May Be a Long Shot, but Even the Lottery Has a Winner - The New York Times”>Harvard May Be a Long Shot, but Even the Lottery Has a Winner - The New York Times)</p>
<p>I didn’t apply to any safety schools as I was admitted to Michigan EA. Thus, the schools that I got rejected from were not surprising.</p>
<p>Re: #11</p>
<p>Rejection from a “safety” means that it was not an actual safety.</p>
<p>Re: #13</p>
<p>EA acceptance with sufficient financial aid turns that school into a safety.</p>
<p>“Waste the “acceptance effort”? What effort? The school sends a piece of mail”</p>
<p>Selective schools invest significant time in every application they consider. Eliminating up front those that have no chance of matriculation can save effort.</p>
<p>The process of considering an applicant’s matriculation odds is the effort of assessing their application. So clearly the effort is in determining the applicant’s likelihood to matriculate, not in accepting them. A school will determine to admit a student, then put them on a list and send them a piece of mail. A school will host admitted student days and give info to students, but it will do this regardless of how many students it admits that won’t matriculate.</p>
<p>I got an acceptance from BC and Rutgers’ 6 yr PharmD program, was waitlisted at Haverford, and outright rejected from NYU. I was surprised by the NYU decision, but could care less now. I would have chosen BC over it any day.</p>
<p>waitlisted to UChi and Cornell, accepted to Columbia via likely letter. very weird.</p>
<p>My son was rejected by Colgate, accepted to Bowdoin. Colgate is not need-blind, Bowdoin is.</p>
<p>My D was WL at Bucknell. Accepted at William & Mary.</p>