My S was waitlisted at Princeton, Harvard and Duke; admitted to Columbia and U of C. This frankly seems like a high number of waitlist results to me and I am wondering whether it’s possible that many schools including highly selective schools decided to waitlist more students than usual in light of possible changes in yield among international students. Does anyone else have this impression?
You would have to compare this year’s number of waitlisted students to previous years, using the CDS.
Many expect that there will be more waitlist action this year (regardless of how many are offered/accept a waitlist spot), due to uncertain yield not only of international students, but domestic as well. Time will tell.
Some colleges waitlist a lot of students anyway. For example Dartmouth waitlists at least 2000 students (with zero admits). So far just anecdotally it is hard to tell how many more people are waitlisted. For the top colleges I would guess they wailtisted about the same number of students. However they might actually use the lists.
It’s possible that schools increased the size of their waitlists in the current admission cycle, but the reality is that top schools have been waitlisting a lot of students in recent years. Two of my kids, both with high stats, have gone through the admission process in the past 5 years; both applied to a lot of highly selective/reach schools (they had safeties too) and each wound up being waitlisted at 4-6 schools.
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Waitlists are one of the dark areas of college admissions. At many schools the waitlist isn’t about holding on to kids they will accept if a space just opens up, it’s primarily marketing to future applicants.
There is no rule that requires only putting enough kids on the waitlist to provide a reasonable buffer for a shortcoming in enrollment. So smart college adcoms realized they could have it two ways. They could use the waitlist for kids for whom they’re hoping space opens, which is what most people think a waitlist does.
And they could use the waitlist to pass out quasi “acceptances” that didn’t require actually enrolling the kid!! HS juniors with similar stats will think “If Julie got in last year then I got a shot too” and apply. Thing is, Julie didn’t get in; she was waitlisted and somehow never made it off the list. Colleges love lots of applicants because the more apps they have the more selective they look.
You can sometimes find numbers in the Common Data Set reports. In 2019 for Northwestern 3,067 offered the waitlist, 55 eventually taken from it. UPenn offered 2,051, eventually accepted 101. WUSTL, well known for passing out waitlist slots, won’t even say how many are waitlisted!! But in 2018-19 they took 31 from it. In other words they know very few of the waitlist kids will get in but it’s a great move on their part to have thousands of kids spreading the word they were offered a slot on the waitlist.
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So waitlisting is more of a strategic play by universities, rather than by a yield / admissions correction? 
In part. Though it could also be caution. For instance, if a pandemic hits and a school is forced to take hundreds/thousands off the waitlist (this actually happened at a few schools last cycle). Schools don’t suffer if there are too many kids on a waitlist. They do if they didn’t put enough on. It also allows them to pick and choose to fill out a class depending on who accepted and who didn’t and they’d rather have more choices than fewer choices.
It absolutely makes sense on the school’s side (business end) of things, but leave thousands in limbo. (Yes, they are clear on spreading the message to secure a Plan B)
Just hope they get to tap into the WL list, in addition to accepting gap year students (who, no fault of their own, wanted a true school year, rather than a remote or uncertain first year)
Thanks