<p>Would you accept the waitlist offer or refuse it? I ask this because last year about 1000 applicants refused to be waitlisted.</p>
<p>well…this is second-hand information, as i never read the article myself, but my dad said that he read some article last year in the nyt specifically about columbia’s waitlist. namely, that they offer quite a few people places on the waitlist and accept very, very few off of it. to me, this seems like pretty standard practice, but i dunno. because of this story, my dad is discouraging me from accepting a place on the waitlist if i get offered one (with the logic that there’s no sense perpetuating hope with chances around 1% or less). however, columbia truly is my dream school. i simply don’t know if i’d be able to bring myself to turn down an offer for even a slight chance of still being able to attend. tough decisions.</p>
<p>I would accept to be on the waitlist</p>
<p>I’m not really clear on what your options are if you’re waitlisted - does this mean you must withdraw your application to other colleges? Because if not, I don’t see why you wouldn’t accept the waitlist offer…?</p>
<p>You don’t withdraw, because that could ultimately mess the whole thing up. You state you are going to be on the list, but by then, you have already paid the deposit fee to your college. Something like that</p>
<p>Wait…so if you accept to be waitlisted you’ll have to pay the $500 deposit fee to Columbia…even if ultimately you do not get accepted? :/</p>
<p>Silence1113,</p>
<p>I believe good4college means paying the $500 deposit to another college that already accepted you while waiting for Columbia’s offer from its wait-list.</p>
<p>Yeah, because by then, you must have chosen another college, besides Columbia, that you will go to, if you don’t get accepted off the waitlist.</p>
<p>The deposit will be returned if you are not finally removed from the wait list.</p>
<p>So what’s the negative side to accepting a waitlist position?</p>
<p>If you’re not accepted ED, you will be either rejected or deferred. Being deferred is different than being waitlisted. It just means that your application will automatically move into the RD round. It doesn’t cost anything and you’re not offered a choice in the matter; the only way you can withdraw from it is if you decide to cancel your application to Columbia altogether.</p>
<p>Applicants (whether RD or, much more rarely, deferred ED) are only waitlisted after the RD decisions have been announced. That’s when you get the choice to stay on the waitlist or not. Staying on the waitlist doesn’t cost anything either.</p>
<p>Ahh I see. Thanks for the info pwoods.</p>
<p>A deferred, then waitlisted, applicant that finally gets accepted would be the definition of the word “miracle”. </p>
<p>lol</p>
<p>I think I would ultimately reject the waitlist offer. If I am deferred then that’s fine but if I’m waitlisted then I don’t think I can handle that period of limbo. And if I do end up being the “miracle” (I seriously lol’ed at that) case that Silence113 talked about, I’ll probably end up second guessing myself the whole time I’m at Columbia thinking that I probably don’t match up with the rest of the students there.</p>