How does waitlisting make any sense at all?

Applying to College
1

<p>I'm just a little skeptical since I've been waitlisted at as many places as I've gotten REAL answers from...</p>

<p>Let's see, suppose everyone accepts a place at one of 3 colleges and are now waiting for waitlist decisions.</p>

<p>College 1 decides that they need 1 more person to fill their class, so they call up a waitlisted person who said they were going to College 2. Now College 2 has a vacancy, which they fill up with someone at College 1. This goes back and forth forever.</p>

<p>Or, it can spread from College 2 to College 3 or any number of combinations.</p>

<p>In the end, the number of students remain the same. But if the schools remain stubborn, this could literally go on forever :)</p>

<p>And also, do schools have to pay attention to their "waitlist yield", or % of accepted students who might be on waitlists to other schools?</p>

2

<p>you assume that all schools will get exactly the yield they want. at some schools, they'd be more than happy to drop their freshman class size by a dozen or two people if more people accepted than they expected.</p>

3

<p><em>sigh</em> okay I get what you're saying</p>

<p>I was just thinking that it would be so much easier to get everything right (yield and whatnot) the first time around</p>

<p>But I guess it's a lot more accurate when you have basically two rounds of admissions</p>

4

<p>It doesn't help that most of these schools share the same pool of students.</p>

5

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<p>sure. but that requires getting everything right the first time around. If you think that's possible, become an adcom. You'll be the most successful one ever.</p>

6

<p>With waitlisting I hate that you don't find out until after you have to send decisions to all the colleges you were actually accepted to, and that's pretty risky. What's the deal?</p>