Does anyone know if schools reject any students, or do they just put everyone that they aren’t sure about on a waitlist? Especially curious about Yale and Juilliard.
Of course they reject them. The only students put on a waitlist are ones the school would be happy to admit if there were space.
Thanks for the information. My daughter is on waitlists for 2 schools. We are new to this and didn’t know if the schools just had one HUGE waitlist where everyone who didn’t quite make the cut were put on. All this is kind of stressful 
Waitlist often happens when the student has made the cutoff but there are issues with the teacher. Every school is different how they handle things, but what can happen IME is that you list teachers you want to study with, and if let’s say your first choice teacher doesn’t have space or didn’t want to teach you, you may get on the waitlist while they try the other teachers; or maybe none of the teachers you put down were available, and they are waiting to see if a slot opens up in one of the studios. This reflects the two tiered nature of many music schools, you pass the audition then have to have a teacher agree to teach you and has space, and if you pass the audition but the teacher is an issue you can get waitlisted.
Both Yale and Juilliard have short waitlists. They don’t put very many students on this list; students do get admitted from the waitlist. From my understanding, Juilliard admits its top ranked students regardless of studio. Students are sometimes admitted to Juilliard without a studio assignment–it’s not related to waitlisting. They do find a studio for everyone in the end. Yale (I assume you mean grad school) is pretty small with a small faculty. If you call them they will probably tell you where you stand on the waitlist.