Let me get this straight, so a college uses all sorts of criteria when admitting students for ED or RD, but all of a sudden for their waitlist they no longer care for the students qualifications? In other words everyone on the waitlist is equal? I highly doubt that is what happens. I believe they rank the students based on all sorts of factors, their academic qualifications, certainly the level of interest they demonstrated after being placed on the waitlist, perhaps diversity, and a myriad of other factors. This happens for ED waitlists that have been deferred for RD, and for RD waitlists. If there are admissions counselors here I would love to hear their more educated feedback.
@akin67 From Hamilton’s website: There is no numerical ranking on Hamilton’s wait list.
So with all of these schools, they place a 1000 students on a waitlist, that they then admit 10 - 50 students from. Who gets call 1 and who is the 1000th person on that list? How is that determined? Have you noticed all the “How to get off a waitlist” advice articles and blogs there are from leading college advisors and sites? If all applicants are equal why feel the need to rectify areas of weakness in a letter? Here is an example of such advice from a popular college advice service. Not only do colleges use academic qualifications in selecting who gets called earlier, but some who are need-blind, state they are not for waitlisted students.
I reviewed the waitlist criteria for many colleges and it seems that on the one hand they state they don’t rank waitlisted students, but then almost everyone will state that they consider many factors in the selection process. Isn’t this the case with ED and RD as well? Most state that they don’t rank students but look at a myriad of factors. So although there may not be a formal ranking system for waitlisted students they are all still looking at all sorts of criteria in deciding on who gets those calls first.
The wl sometimes serves the purpose of balancing out the class. Like if the class is skewing too heavily female, they will likely take more males. Maybe they feel they are light on a particular geographic region or ethnicity so they pull those kids first. Full pay is said to help. Or maybe they need more kids interested in a particular subject area or major.
Since the chances of enrolling the intended class size on the first attempt fall at essentially zero, it would seem that colleges that do not accept from their waitlists (whether early or later) have mismanaged their admissions (by nearly inevitably over-enrolling their classes). Regarding yield this year at Hamilton specifically, they would need to enroll 75 students from the waitlist in order to reach an overall yield similar to that of last year. Based on this figure, Hamilton appears to have been conservative in their initial acceptances in order to allow for the possibility of an uncommonly high yield.
@merc81 Yes, I now understand this all a bit better than when I originally posted. Seems to be a balancing act between admit rate and yield rate and each school handles it differently. Far better to under-admit and go to waitlist than over-enroll!
And going to the waitlist does not seem to be a commentary on the selectivity of the school; D’s boyfriend just got into Pomona via waitlist.
Has anybody gotten off of the waitlist yet?
@zoemv2 Yes, I got off the waitlist on May 2nd and a friend of mine heard back yesterday. Seems like they’re still taking people so cross your fingers!
Congratulations!