<p>I was just curious if anyone has looked at, or compiled, the percentage of applicants that accept spots on school waitlists? Has anyone noticed any patterns? Does this say anything about the school? For instance, you will see many offer analysis of causation for differing enrollment yields.</p>
<p>It probably gives an indication of how many applicants consider that college their top choice.</p>
<p>But given that the schools themselves sometimes alter their target numbers for the waitlist pool, a comparison of percentages that accept the WL spot is almost meaningless. One year, School X may choose to wait list 1000 for instance. Another year, they determine to drop it to 700. Both years 400 accept WL spots. 40% one year, 57% the next.</p>
<p>I became curious coming across hugely disparate percentages from waitlist data from last year (data is from an article, I have not verified from the CDS), for example:</p>
<p>American University*
Waitlisted: 1,138/201 accepted waitlist (17.66%)
Admission offers: 0</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins University*
Waitlisted: 3,667/3,006 accepted waitlist (81.97%)
Admission offers: 1</p>
<p>The differences at many schools were so dramatic that it caught my attention. I suppose it could have something to do with how the waitlist notification is worded?</p>
<p>Be very careful in using waitlist #'s for analysis; many schools use them in an interesting way; I will illustrate:</p>
<p>College: Hello, is this Johnny SMith? We were wondering here at Wherever U if you would accept if offered a position off the waitlist for Fall 2011?</p>
<p>Johnny: Well, Wherever U was my first choice back in December but I would need some time to decide.</p>
<p>College: well, …if you can definitely say you will attend if admitted, you will receive an admission package in the mail…</p>
<p>Johnny: Well, can I have some time to get back to you?</p>
<p>College: How is 24 hours?</p>
<p>You get my drift; it isn’t like this everywhere, but this type of conversation could definitely skew the numbers…</p>
<p>If a college hits against alot of “undecided” kids, this could take awhile…and if they don’t report how many were “offered” the spot off the waitlist (but may not have accepted), who knows?</p>
<p>and I didn’t even add the FA issue here…most waitlists offers have to be accepted without the benefit of a FA package in hand…</p>