CDS question C2, same source as pretty much all waitlist data, afaik.
EDIT: they’ve recently posted the most recent CDS (Princeton has failed to update their links), same basic story, but even fewer offers.(652 for 53,281 not accepted)
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As the parent of someone who was placed on a waitlist, I think my kid both knew it was a soft rejection and was a lot happier to receive it than an outright rejection.
She did not choose to keep her waitlist spot. She knew the odds were slim. But I think she liked knowing she was in the “confirmed as qualified but we ran out of spots” category.
I think a lot of applicants see it as affirming and a much smaller number hold out false hope. At least among the people we know.
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Snideness is NOT appreciated. For some reason, I thought Stanford doesn’t produce a CDS/announce stats.
You tell me. Why are they waitlisting 10,000 applicants when they could just as easily, actually far more easily waitlist 500? As the OP stated, some people posted videos and were happy about being waitlisted. If 9,000 of the 10,000 waitlisted applicants become rejected applicants instead - maybe less people would apply next year? So maybe they like the growing application numbers. But I don’t think anybody said or implied anybody was owed anything. I think it is more just the new reality of 50,000-70,000 applicants where they used to have 20,000-30,000 applicants but they haven’t increased their enrollment at all. They are seeing a lot more qualified candidates who would have been easily accepted 10, 20, 30 years ago, maybe even 5 years ago, but when you have so many more applications and no additional slots, maybe they do feel like a waitlist is a nice way to say “you were qualified to go here but we didn’t have enough spots for you and the rest of the waitlist”. Because at the end of the day if 9000 people are offered waitlist and 8999 turn it down and the 9000th person who was added is the only one who accepts the offer, if a spot opens, he or she will get in, because no matter how big it is, they have declared you were good enough. Which, at least several schools have said in statements. Vanderbilt’s dean of admissions said this year’s waitlist candidates would have been Cornelius Vanderbilt Scholarship winners 4 years ago. I know I saw a couple of similar statements out there from other top universities.
Stanford doesn’t announce stats UNTIL they post their CDS, typically nearly a year later. Penn announced this year they will start doing the same (they have a new Dean of Admissions).
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More like, they predicted yield correctly, or they got overyield. This (or underyield) can happen regardless of whether they are actively trying to increase (versus predict) yield through considering level of applicant’s interest.
Seems consistent with how they do (R)EA decisions, where they are known for rejecting most non-admitted EA applicants, presumably deferring to RD only the true borderline EA applicants, in contrast to other colleges that defer most non-admitted EA applicants, including those who likely have no chance at an RD admission.
Either way, it is just incredibly misleading to have enormous waitlist.
It may be so that future potential applicants may think that they have a chance if “someone just like me got waitlisted instead of rejected” (versus thinking that there is no point in applying if “everyone just like me got rejected”).
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I don’t think it’s unethical, especially when kids apply to so many schools. Not only do the schools not know which accepted students will enroll, they don’t know who will accept a WL position. The growth of the wait lists has followed the increase in applications/student. Students feel like they need more options and so do the schools.
BUT I think that for all the parts of the application process that are discussed, this part is overlooked. My kid’s BS did a terrific job of helping families understand how applications are evaluated, the pros and cons of ED, where there was merit money, whether TO was a good option, etc. Yet… At no point did they talk about the neither yes nor no decision of the WL. I think more education around this would really help everyone. I really appreciated the schools that send a WL decision with info like “last year, we offered 900 students an option to remain on the WL. 600 decided to do so and we admitted 6 of them.”
The people who end up feeling the most wronged about it are the ones who thought it meant they had a good chance and then felt duped when they got the real story. It’s easy to say the should have known better, but how would they? I wish the admissions departments let applicants know what the decisions were they might get and what they meant. I also wished that there was a clear explanation to WL students of the WL process at each school.
Will they even look at the WL before the RD decision date? How will they contact you? When will they let you know they are done? Might they ask if you want to stay on the extended summer WL? What should you do in the meantime? It breaks my heart and makes me crazy to see these kids here every year thinking this is going to be another wave of decisions…
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It could be, but I would think that’s secondary to preserving the widest possible pool of qualified applicants if the college has to go to the WL. AFAIK, no college has 100% yield, and the last few years have probably thrown calculations off-kilter, particularly for excellent but not “top” schools.
The growth in the number of WLd candidates is very much related to the overall increase of applicants (and likely qualified applicants). Again, the school is preserving as many options as it can get if yields (overall or in specific areas) aren’t met.
Any way you slice it, it is done TOTALLY for the college’s benefit. To that extent, I agree it s______ (feel free to add any letters you choose).
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Selective colleges have fallen significantly short of enrollment targets in recent years (e.g., Grinnell, Bucknell). Perhaps this would not have been the case if their waiting lists had been larger.
Both of those schools took very few from their waitlist according to their 2020-2021 CDS. Under enrolled? In fact, Grinnell had a housing shortage this year due to over enrollment.
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My observation is more that there is huge variation about how waitlists are used at different schools/years, rather than most schools filling x% of class from their waitlist. Some specific examples are below from the 2019 (pre-COVID) CDS are below. Some colleges like Lehigh and UCSD waitlisted a large portion of applicant and filled a large portion of the class from their waitlist. Some colleges like Case Western and Kenyon waitlisted a large portion of applicants, but admited few from that waitlist. Some colleges like Stanford and MIT waitlisted only a very small portion of applicants and admited few from that waitlist.
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Lehigh – Waitlists 40% (6,200)*, Admits 32%, Rejects 28% – 52% of waitlist offered admission, Admitted Waitlist / Class Size = 93%
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Case Western – Waitlists 36% (10,400)*, Admits 27%, Rejects 37% – 4% of waitlist offered admission, Admitted Waitlist / Class Size = 15%
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Kenyon – Waitlists 32% (2,200)*, Admits 34%, Rejects 33% – 1% of waitlist offered admission, Admitted Waitlist / Class Size = 2%
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UCSD – Waitlists 20% (20,000)*, Admits 32%, Rejects 48% – 35% of waitlist offered admission, Admitted Waitlist / Class Size = 72%
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Stanford – Waitlists 2% (750)*, Admits 4%, Rejects 94% – 1% of waitlist offered admission, Admitted Waitlist / Class Size = <1%
*Number offered spot on waitlist, many did not accept
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Lehigh’s CDS doesn’t make any sense. They have 815 ED admits and 1,684 from the waitlist and somehow end out with a class size of 1,370.
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Seems like there’s a lot of scope to treat waitlists differently for CDS reporting: if you have a small number of spots you phone individually and only offer if you are sure they will accept (which seems to be the CWRU reputation). If you have lots of places and do a mass mailing then many offers will be turned down.
I also wonder if, as a result of the massive increase of applications each school receives, this is a way of AOs to give themselves more time to review the applications. If a school say, doubled its application numbers compared to prior year, they most likely would not have the manpower to review all the applications prior to decision release date. They make offers to those who are “definites” and waitlist those that may sound promising but they don’t have time to read through. Post admission results, they will have another month to review other applications. Any truth to that?
Based on the folks I know who have worked in admissions, no - no truth to that.
For ED deferrals, they have read the apps too but they need to see how they stack up against RD.
I also haven’t heard this is a thing.
Many schools hire external application readers which allows admission staffs to adapt to application numbers. Some schools only need to hire a few external readers, while others hire hundreds.
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I’m a little confused as to why posters think a WL is unethical. It is what it is. If a student receives a WL offer, it is then in the student’s court to decide what to do with that offer. Seems those who don’t like WL are the parents whose kids got a lot of WL offers and maybe didn’t get into a top choice. Having smaller waitlists wasn’t going to get those kids into the schools that offered them a WL spot. Many just would have received a rejection.
Students benefit from colleges managing yield well once they are a college students. No one wants to be a college student on an overenrolled campus.
Both of our kids got WL offers and I didn’t feel any animosity towards those schools.
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