<p>Hello everybody,
I think I know the answer to this, but I'm not quite sure. Is there a difference between being wait listed and rejected? And does this go for all schools?
Thanks!</p>
<p>being waitlisted pretty much means your good but not good enough. rejected means we had much better applicants than you. even if you are waitlisted it is unlikely that you are to be accepted after that</p>
<p>rejected: denied. no chance, try again next year</p>
<p>waitlisted: you’re on a wait-list (ha ha) which means that if their calculated yield is off and some accepted students chose to go to a different school so they have empty seats, they call upon their waitlist and accept students from there. so it’s like… a minute chance of still getting in.</p>
<p>A positive way to look at the waitlist is that you were in the right range of candidates for admission…helpful to know if you end up applying again the next year.</p>
<p>Being rejected means there were other applicants that the school would rather have. Being wait listed means they want you at the school but there were just better applicants they would rather have. You do have a chance to get off the wait list but it’s all chance. Two years ago Exeter took 20 people or so off the wait list and last year took 0.</p>
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<p>No it doesn’t.</p>
<p>oops, it seems i misinterpreted the question… anyway, yeah, WLed usually means that you’re in the right range (or for lower tier schools, yield protection-- tufts effect), and i think that rejected means that you weren’t a great fit for the school, or that the competition was simply too tough</p>
<p>loco–contact each school. I find most of the responses above way harsh. I believe that not-selected vs wait-listed means things to different school and to different applicants.</p>
<p>Classicalmama has it right in this quote:</p>
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<p>Amen! It means they had more qualified students they wanted, then they had space for. And if enough students turn then down - or even better, one student with the same “hook” turns them down, they’d be interested in making a spot for you. It’s a positive and even if not a definite position - take it as a compliment.</p>
<p>Even if you’re rejected some component of the above is true. With so few spots it has become nearly impossible for every qualified candidate to get their first (or even second) choices. Just not enough physical space to accommodate them all.</p>
<p>okay, thanks for the responses everyone! so another question popped up while I was reading the responses… so if you are wait listed, you aren’t rejected… you are (in basic terms) good enough for the school. so how do you think they determine if you are accepted or wait listed?</p>
<p>It’s actually a little bit of a crap shoot. In fact, one AO noted that if their office were to re-do the admission process a few weeks later with the same applicant pool, the results would almost surely be different. There are lots of subjective factors that come into play when selecting from a large pool of academically fully qualified students. From week to week, those subjective factors will shift. Remember that AO’s are imperfect human beings too!</p>
<p>It also - crazily - sometimes depends on the ORDER they read the applications! Which is why, as Mainer95 said, if they were to re-do the process with the same pool, it would be a different result. Kind of in their heads, they already filled the “spot reserved” for the expert green haired under water basket weaver and then they read your application, and you are one too! Well, it’s a demographic that they don’t want to have too many of…so you are waitlisted.<br>
Some schools will waitlist for FA reasons (some will accept with a WL for FA, some will outright WL).<br>
Getting off the waitlist depends on many factors - obviously the first is overall yeild, but also gender and grade yeild of course. And then other things - using my example above if the green haired UWBW does not accept their offer, they may go to the wait list for one, even if the overall yeild is still high.</p>
<p>Then there are courtesy waitlists for trustee and legacy children that who are not really qualified…but they can’t really outright not accept them.</p>
<p>Someone before on CC also said that WL are for well qualified students who had better qualifications, stats (grades, SSATs) etc. where the school has decided to pick a lesser qualified student based on a Hook, or other factors, URM etc. </p>
<p>The individual is waitlisted because based on merit alone, would have been more qualified.I don’t know if the concern was a lawsuit that the school accepted less qualified applicants or what, but a way around this is to say, yes you are just as or more qualified, but we can’t take you. It gets around the rejection altogether, no one has been rejected, just waitlisted.</p>