<p>I have a question for the parents of CC. Waitlisted kids on the Harvard board are saying they have been admitted to Harvard off the Z-list. That means they can go to Harvard, but not until Fall of 2009 (Class of 2013). With such a big hole to fill from the waitlist, why would Harvard do this? They have to fill 200 spots for the class of 2012 from the waitlist, so why wouldnt they just let everyone into the Class of 2012 rather than deferring some of them until the following fall? TIA.</p>
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<li><p>Chances are they've filled 2012 in the past week.</p></li>
<li><p>Lots of kids defer at Harvard, and they probably have an expectation about how many kids will defer. If they got fewer deferrals than expected, they may want to fill that pipe, too.</p></li>
<li><p>My guess is that this may be the difference between the 150-175 number that the NYT reported a couple of weeks ago and the 200 number the Crimson reported last week.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>But aren't they just robbing from Peter to pay Paul? In other words, next year there will be as many wonderful people to admit as this year. Why guarantee spots to some number of people for next year, when they'll have to turn down next year's kids who would have taken those spots??</p>
<p>Is anyone familiar with any other schools that do this?</p>
<p>It's more common to defer kids to a January admission I think - which fills up spaces made available by students going abroad in the spring.</p>
<p>It's all a question of balance.</p>
<p>My understanding is that Harvard affirmatively likes kids to defer: The cool kids they admit do cool things in their gap years, and are better students for it. This is very common in Britain and maybe elsewhere in Europe, and will probably get more common here. In any event, Harvard wants to offer a deferral option to the students it admits.</p>
<p>If 200 kids deferred last year, and Harvard expected the same number to defer this year and next year, then its target class would be exactly the same size as last year's and next year's. As a result of its caution in the April 1 RD admissions, and a slight decline in its yield vs. last year, it had fewer kids accepting enrollment, and fewer kids deferring. The normal waitlist deal is that waitlist acceptees don't have a deferral option; I don't know if that's true at Harvard. In any event, after going through its initial waitlist round, it may have had all of its freshman dorm rooms spoken for next year, but still only 160 deferrals. So, rather than admitting a smaller class this year and planning on a slightly larger class next year, why not admit another 40 kids as deferrals and balance things out? (Which also sends the message that deferrals are a good thing.) When the dust clears this year, Harvard will have offered admission to 50-100 fewer kids than last year, and enrolled somewhat fewer kids, too. There was no reason to make the annual variation greater than that.</p>
<p>Harvard can't do the January start thing, because the students going abroad, who are generally sophomores and juniors, don't live in the same buildings as the freshmen.</p>
<p>Read Dan Golden's "The Price of Admission" - he explains how the "Z-List" works.</p>
<p>AdOfficer - Thanks for the reference. I had a chance to look at the appropriate pages in the library copy on my lunch hour! My niece has not been offered a 'z list' admission and now I see that this is unlikely, at least according to Daniel Golden, the author of "The Price of Admission". She is not a legacy, nor from a wealthy or well-connected family. Interesting reading.</p>
<p>Last year, my cousin's son was desperate to go to H and turned down other ivies for the gap year experience and a delayed admission to H. He went abroad and started his own business. He will be starting H this fall.</p>
<p>Waitlisted kids at our HS have been hearing from H this past week. Our HS Sal was almost reluctantly going to P but really only wanted to go to H. Now that she's been offered admission off the waitlist she is conflicted because P gave her a much bigger grant than H. </p>
<p>The waitlist drama will likely continue for a while...</p>