<p>hockeymomofthree -- you won't see any movement off the waitlist until after revisit days and contracts are turned in. Waitlisted spots are usually offered when a school has a lower than expected yield -- and they won't know that until about early/mid-April (most enrollment contracts are due around April 5th). </p>
<p>Kids offered a spot off the waitlist do not get a revisit day -- in fact, they often have to tell the person who called immediately that they will attend (sometimes they can take 24 hours to decide). There were rumors last year that top schools that went to their waitlist would call the students on the waitlist and if they didn't answer, they would move to the next student on the list. Not sure if this is true -- but you might want to make sure and have correct contact info!</p>
<p>Also -- financial aid is rarely offered to students on the waitlist.</p>
<p>congratulations pom_mom. I hope your daughter loves Hotchkiss if she decides to go there. </p>
<p>To those on the waitlists, my daughter at Hotchkiss has one really good friend there who was waitlisted and was then offered admission a bit after the revisit days and after the deadline for accepted kids to say yea or nay. I do know that one year Andover apparently did not take anyone off of their waitlist, but that was like three or four years ago. To those who have at least one acceptance to a school their child may like to attend, even if it wasn't initially their first choice, the waitlist can be a long summer of agonizing only to get the dreaded letter in August saying, sorry, we will not be able to take you. It is not a pleasant way to spend the spring and summer, waiting and waiting. The number of kids taken off of waitlists is very few if any typically. I disagree about the comment if you were waitlisted and then admitted you would not be offered FA, at at least one TSO school that I know of, that is not correct information. It depends on the school and the situation. I know a real live student who was waitlisted, later offered admission, and offered almost a full FA package.</p>
<p>Waitlisting is tough. Things vary hugely from school to school and year to year. I don't know of many who have come off the waitlists, but some do. There will be a flurry of activity right in April, after the date to reply for accepted applicants has passed, then there might be more action all summer.
Generally, there is very little FA left, and you will also be asked to decide quickly. Waitlisted kids are not ranked,really, since it is more a case of find a kid who is most like the kid who decided not to come.</p>
<p>I figured that after revisit days there would be some turnover but the letter said anywhere from April until Aug. I am also thinking that people wont accept at schools if they dont get enough FA.
So we accept 2nd choice, which S and I actually liked better, he gets into waitlist school and we loose deposit?
We dont need FA so at least we dont have to worry about that.</p>
<p>It really depends on the school. We have 2 friends who were offered spots the day of the deadline to accept last year. One in fact was getting in the car to drive the contract to second choice school when the call came. Luckily, they had a great relationship with 2nd choice school and they gave them an extra couple of days. They did get a generous FA package. </p>
<p>My son was waitlisted at a top name school that he would have been required to attend as a day student. I called and spoke with our admissions rep who looked at the 10th grade day boy admit list and said that she really felt they were all coming. We stayed on until the deadline and then came off. </p>
<p>While students are not "ranked" they are likely put into "buckets" of some sort. Certainly, male-female buckets and likely buckets by EC as well.<br>
Sports, music, etc give admissions "wish lists" of kids. If the team is need of a green haired underwater basketweaver and you are very talented in that area - but were second on the coach's list, you may be waitlisted. If the first choice declines, they may go to you before the awesome clarinet player since they already have 10 great clarinet players.<br>
I think they also do some geographic buckets. If all the mid-west acceptances at a New England school say no, they would probably go to the mid-west wait list students in order to keep their geographic diversity.</p>
<p>There is really no way to know and they won't tell you and it isn't a "ranking" and it varies from year to year based on who says yes.</p>
<p>We are not hopeful about my son actually attending from the waitlist next year, but it is nice to know that he was not rejected. He could have been. The waitlist decision isn't what makes me so sad. It's the prospect of another year at his public school, filling out worksheets and not being about to discuss much that makes me so sad. It's another year of unfulfilled potential.</p>
<p>If it makes any difference to you, my son was accepted to SPS and chose Mercersburg instead because of the feel of the school and the students. The students were happy, brught and well-rounded. Obviosuly, SPS is a great school. But you should really focus on the fit! My son is now a rising senior senior at Mercersburg and he has had a joyous experience.</p>
<p>It seems that wait lists for boarding schools work very differently than the wait lists for NYC independent schools in terms of timing. Schools mailed decisions on February 17th (yes, MAILED). Student decisions are due back by noon on March 16th (yes, NOON). With the 16th being a Tuesday, the wait lists are expected to go into motion (if they move at all) sometime in the middle to end of the previous week (as revisit days wind down - last possible revisit day is the 12th), but one can get a call until the very last moment on the 16th. Since no one wants to put a non-refundable deposit (typically around $5K) at a school to then get a call from a school that one prefers, everybody who is waiting on a school waits until the last moment before putting down the deposit at their next choice). Most schools, however, will give families a reasonable assessment as to whether a last moment call is a possibility. If it is, and you want to wait it out, you have someone ready to make a mad dash to the other school with a signed contract and check if the call doesn’t come. You probably get a slight amount of extra time after a call for a wait list, but timing will be tight there, too.</p>
<p>It all can be so nervewracking, but at least it has a finite end in a relatively short time frame.</p>
<p>I’m rather pleased to see this year-old thread resuscitated. This year’s crop of expectant parents need all the good luck we can get, just like last year’s.</p>
<p>Lvillegrad’s post made me glad I prepared a good dinner this evening. If that’s the kind of anxiety we can expect over the next few weeks, this may be one of the last relaxed meals we eat for a while.</p>
<p>*Lvillegrad’s post made me glad I prepared a good dinner this evening. If that’s the kind of anxiety we can expect over the next few weeks, this may be one of the last relaxed meals we eat for a while. *</p>
<p>Well, that level of anxiet only really applies if you or your child is on a NYC wait list. Since it seems that boarding school wait list anxiety is attenuated over a longer period of time, the fever pitch won’t be the same. Right now through this Wednesday is probably as tense as it gets.</p>
<p>Good luck parents! It definitely was a roller coaster for us last year. Our best news came early on the morning of March 10th, followed by an online waitlist and, a day or two later, a rejection letter via snail mail.</p>