<p>I am a waitlistee, and I'm tempted to call admissions and ask why I was waitlisted. I'm not "shocked" or "outraged" or anything by the decision, I would just like to know if there was some weakness in my app that made the adcoms hesitant to accept me.</p>
<p>Do you think they'd tell me anything useful? or just say some BS like "there weren't enough spots blah blah blah"</p>
<p>personally I think this sort of gambit only makes sense in smaller colleges where your stats are off the charts above and beyond the top quartile…then you wonder if there was a mistake, a glitch, a letter of reference that went on an on about your love for College X when you were applying to College Y etc.</p>
<p>when you are competing with 27,000 people, there is no such thing as a surprise waitlist in my opinion. You just have to be prepared and expect that waitlist and rejection is reality for the majority of fully qualified applicants. </p>
<p>The articles in the Chronicle are pretty fulsome today re categories and “building a class” including all the special programs that must be filled to keep Duke’s academic and extra curricular worlds spinning round well. </p>
<p>Do write a letter stating you will withdraw from a college where you have a deposit up till the end of the summer if offered an opening in the class. You can restate what you have to offer the class of 2014 but I wouldn’t repeat your application. Maybe a new letter of reference? </p>
<p>good luck and I am sorry you were disappointed with the waitlist. We all realize the waitlist is cram full of super people who have so much to give and are ready to do the work.</p>
<p>In one of those articles thay say that they reject the top 5% ( which you were probally included in ) along with the bottom quartile. </p>
<p>But I would just call. You have nothing to lose.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Where does Duke say that they reject the top 5%? That’s ridiculous.</p>
<p>@ Stupefy - You will probably get the standard speech at a school like Duke. I know UVa discusses decisions with their applicants, but I don’t think the same policy carries over at the other top schools.</p>
<p>Edit: Never mind. I just called the admission officer for my region and she happily discussed my profile in detail - surprisingly specific, actually. I was accepted though. Hopefully they will talk to you too!</p>
<p>No, marimelo, the point of that article was that the top 5% and the bottom quartile do not need to go to committee discussions because the decisions are “automatic” in a sense. The top 5% are automatic acceptances and the bottom quartile are automatic rejections and everyone in between will go to committee to be talked about.</p>
<p>marimelo21, that’s interesting. Do you by any chance know how I might be able to find that? Would be an intriguing read. </p>
<p>My two cents regarding your question. I don’t think they will be able to name any “specific weakness” in your application, because there probably isn’t one. It’s not a case of comparing your application to a set standard; you’re in if your application is impressive, you’re out if it isn’t. It’s compared to those of other applicants, which I bet are more similar than they are different form yours. Then it is the case of shaping the class as a whole.</p>
<p>The decisions must have been affected from so many little factors, namely the other how many thousand applicants? Unless there was something glaringly wrong with your application (but wouldn’t you know that before sending it off, surely?), I doubt you’d get anything from them apart from the talk of “there weren’t enough spots blah blah blah” </p>
<p>Though to be fair, you should just call them. What have you got to lose? (apart from a bit of money :P) Anyhow, best of luck with all the other universities. You worked hard and that will pay off. It has to. So don’t worry…you’re going somewhere great in August, I am sure :)</p>
<p>All of us have much to consider and many things to do between now and the May 1st deadline, … thinking about why I was waitlisted somewhere should NOT be one of them …</p>
<p>An0maly- How did you find the contact information for the admissions officer for your region? Or did you just call Undergraduate Admissions?</p>
<p>[Duke</a> University Admissions: Contact Admissions](<a href=“http://www.admissions.duke.edu/jump/thed/contact.html]Duke”>http://www.admissions.duke.edu/jump/thed/contact.html)</p>
<p>You can find your person here.</p>
<p>Thank you!</p>
<p>wow anomaly, maybe they only do that for accepted students because i called my regional adcom and she said she wasnt able to talk about my specific app…just said some consoling words</p>
<p>That happened to me too, Stupefy. Oh well…</p>
<p>Just to clarify, according to the article mentioned by marimelo, the top 500-700 were ACCEPTED without review, not rejected.</p>
<p>So we can call duke admissions to discuss our app?</p>