<p>So let's say I have applied to 11 colleges, so far I have acceptance from 2 and wait list from one. Let's say when it is all said and done I have 3-4 acceptance, 3-5 rejections and 3-4 wait lists. Colleges want to know latest by May 1st if you are going to be attending. So you get about a month to make final decision for the accepting colleges. </p>
<p>When do you know about whether you made it to the acceptance list from wait list?
How long you have before you have to let them know?
When do they send you FA package? </p>
<p>In worst case, If the wait listed college becomes available after may 1st, you can always forgo initial deposit. Is that correct? </p>
<p>It depends from school to school but usually around may or june is when they inform you of your waitlist status. They should’ve informed you in their letter of decision. </p>
<p>I too would like to know how financial aid and waitlisting works. Would we receive a financial aid package along with our waitlist decision? Are we put at a disadvantage for financial aid because of our waitlist status? </p>
<p>(1) Put down a deposit on your first choice college (of the ones you were accepted to)</p>
<p>(2) In the event one of your waitlist schools has a place for you, they’ll notify you and, ordinarily, give you a short window to respond “yes” or “no”</p>
<p>(3) Clearly, you cannot respond without a FA package, so that should be included in your offer.</p>
<p>(4) If you accept the offer, you submit a deposit.</p>
<p>(5) You let your original first choice school know that you’ve changed your mind, and you forfeit the deposit you submitted to them originally.</p>
<p>As for the financial aid you might receive, that varies from one college to another. If it’s a school that meets full need, then that’s what they’d do, even for a candidate pulled off the waitlist. At schools that don’t meet full need . . . well, the best thing to do would be to ask them **ahead of time<a href=“before%20you%20even%20send%20in%20your%20waitlist%20card”>/b</a> how they handle financial aid for candidates pulled from the waitlist.</p>
<p>Also let’s say you accept the waitlist offer and decline your other school and a week later a second WL offer comes in that you like better. Even at this point, you can decide to accept, declining the first WL school. </p>
<p>How waitlists “work” is one of the shameful sides of college admissions, IMHO.</p>
<p>There is no rule that requires putting only enough kids on the waitlist to provide a reasonable buffer for a shortcoming in enrollment. So some smart college adcoms realized they could have it both ways. They could use the waitlist to have a stock of kids to cover any shortfalls. And they could use the waitlist to pass out “acceptances” that didn’t require actually enrolling the kid!! Parents and other kids would treat these phantom acceptances like real ones in signalling desirability.</p>
<p>Exhibit A should be Duke, a school striving to better its reputation. Duke waitlisted 3,382 students in 2011, a number that is about twice the size of the number of places they have for frosh. In other words to empty the waitlist every single person accepted would have to decline, and so would the entire set accepted from the waitlist to replace them. Of course Duke has no illusions this will happen; in 2010 they took a grand total of 60.</p>
<p>It was, however, a good move on Duke’s part to have 3,382 kids out there spreading the word at their HS that they are waitlisted at Duke. If 2 or 3 kids at each HS say to themselves “Sally got waitlisted and my stats are similar, maybe even a bit better; I think I can get in!” then Duke gets a bump in the number of students that applied, making it even more selective and boosting its desirability.</p>
<p>So while being on a few waitlists may give you hope that you’re “almost” in, the truth is likely something quite different.</p>
<p>And I’m assuming schools over accept as well. So do people actually get off of waitlists? Probably more likely at larger schools than smaller LA colleges I would think, because those schools tend to be more-self-selecting, but maybe I’m wrong because students do tend to apply to a bunch of them. And do schools ever go to the waitlist before May 1? </p>
<p>“And do schools ever go to the waitlist before May 1” It’s possible – if they get an inordinate number of declined admits early. But usually the numbers of WL spots crystallize in May.</p>