<p>I'm just wondering because, for a while, I was subconsciously thinking that being waitlisted was the same as being rejected. How many people on the wait list typically are accepted into the top schools?</p>
<p>It is well documented that candidates who are waitlisted and know how to use the search function on CC have a greater likelihood of being accepted than those who do not.</p>
<p>In the interest of fairness, however, I will get you started with the following:</p>
<p>[Anyone</a> have a waitlist story with a happy ending?](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-admissions/1093284-anyone-have-waitlist-story-happy-ending.html]Anyone”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-admissions/1093284-anyone-have-waitlist-story-happy-ending.html)</p>
<p>Sorry! I actually didn’t know how to use that function. Got it now though 
Hopefully now my chances will be better</p>
<p>Dodgersmom: Although what you said is true, was it really necessary? IMO, It just seemed very condescending, discreetly rude, and passive aggressive. Plus, the OP is new, and evidently isn’t aware of the that particular function yet.</p>
<p>Waitlisted and rejected are not the same thing. If you’re waitlisted, you know you’re in the right range of candidates for a particular school. Even if you never get off the waitlist, it’s helpful to know the next year what tier/type of school you’re well qualified for.</p>
<p>@starkali: In Dodgersmom’s defense, there have been several threads recently where posters asked fairly common questions without seeming to have tried searching existing threads first. Dodgersmom has fielded questions like this before, linking to appropriate threads…and I don’t fault her approach in this case.</p>
<p>starkali - A bit of an overreaction, I think . . . but your point is well taken and I apologize.</p>
<p>Honestly, it seems CCers are getting “snarky” lately…is it just me? Sorry to offend anyone, but I feel I’m walking on eggshells with every post I write. @starkali, I think you overreacted a little bit…but it’s okay :)</p>
<p>I know exactly what you mean, laughalittle. I mean, I see dodgersmom’s point on this one, but there are always those people who jump on you for writing on another person’s thread, so I was hesitant to do that. I think people really just need to relax and assume that the offending poster is just naive and inexperienced. However, I always do appreciate the one or two posters who defend.</p>
<p>Is it possible that I overreacted? Yes. But honestly, it was a build up of all the rude/snarky/condescending/passive aggressive comments that have been made by dodgers mom and other CC’ers (primarily parents). Dodgersmom, I apologize if I offended you, for the wasn’t really my intention, but I would just ask you to be more understanding of newer posters.</p>
<p>@mayafairy…YES! I just wish that we weren’t so critical of each other. People get into heated debates about stupid things.</p>
<p>Not sure how many applicants get on the waiting list. Even top schools, like PA, DA, lost about 100 accepted students. So the chance is pretty good.</p>
<p>f2000sa- Your post is a bit inaccurate. Yes, there’s always a chance (depending on the year) but several schools including PA,PEA, DA, SPS (I chose these for obvious reasons. I’m never referring to a school using more than 3 letters again!) have years where they do not “go” to their waiting list at all for a given grade/gender. There are other years when they might. The chances of getting off the WL really does depend on the year, circumstance and the school.</p>
<p>For example, I think Andover the year before last ended up oversubscribed, and they had to scramble to find places to put beds. Whether the wait list gets used, and to what degree, varies from year to year: the whole point of the waiting list is for the schools to avoid having empty beds. So your mileage <em>will</em> vary. </p>
<p>If you find yourself on a wait-list, a call to the admissions office is well in order to then get a feel for the year; even then, they won’t know much until the deposits are due later in the spring: that’s the first realrealstrong indication of whether they will be using the waiting list much…</p>
<p>f2000sa, I believe the students that the schools you mention “lose” is actually accounted for in the admit rate. In other words, it is part of what schools refer to as their yield rate.</p>
<p>New people please read this</p>
<p>When a school decides how many kids to admit in each category, they do so knowing that historically, a certain percentage of them will either choose another school or stay home. The percent of accepted students who eventually matriculate is referred to as their yield rate. </p>
<p>Let’s say that school A has 50 slots for 9th grade boys, and they know that in that category they tend to enroll 80% of admitted students. They will actually send acceptance letters to 60 boys knowing that in all likelihood, 20% of them (10) will go to School B. If more than 10 go elsewhere they might then go to the waitlist for another 9th grade boy to fill that spot. They may decide to wait until the following year and add a new 10th grade boy, if they don’t have a similar boy waiting on the list. They can’t very well offer that spot to a boy who needs 30K in FA if there is only 15K left in the budget. So for waitlisted kids who need FA, the planets really have to align for it to all work out.</p>
<p>So when f2000sa says that these schools “lost” 100 students, I think s/he means that 100 admitted students did not enroll. They were counting on this. After all, if one is a good candidate for Top School A, one is probably a good candidate for Top School B and a student can only enroll in one school. I find it hard to believe that the schools mentioned would have been off by that much on their yield calculations.</p>
<p>I explain all of this because every year, after March 10, there will always be some students who say think that when they turn down one school’s offer, they are making room for someone on the waitlist. This is not necessarily the case. These schools are very good at predicting yield. It is the careful analysis of enrollment vs admitted students that makes movement off of a waitlist fairly rare.</p>
<p>And in years (such as two years ago), when the economy is particularly unstable, the school’s estimates can be embarrassingly off. In Andover’s case, they had to dig up 10-15 places to put beds, since more than the expected number of kids decided to attend, and Andover had to live up to it’s commitments to admitted students.</p>
<p>So some years, they don’t go to the list at all; some it may be just a few, and others, it may be significant. What the schools don’t tell you is how long their wait-list is…</p>
<p>I’ve always wondered how many people are WL’d every year…</p>
<p>Substantially more than would immediately be obvious, I suspect. In years with uncertain economies, I expect the waiting list is larger than in stable years: it’s certainly what I would do if I sat on that side of the table. And whether the WL gets used at all, and to what degree, varies from year to year (and school to school).</p>
<p>Many people will drop off the wait-list, and take an admissions offer at some other school, rather than wait. Others don’t want the uncertainty, and decline sooner or later. And the school wants to be able to select among the wait list, so don’t think of it as a single ordered list at all: think of it as a “pool” of possible admissions, should the school need it to fill the incoming class. The schools need enough to stick to the list to cover the largest downside they can foresee. Once the deposits come in, the schools may be able to give you a realistic appraisal of odds.</p>
<p>Some people mentioned that some high competitive schools rarely dip into the waiting list. Not sure how they manage their yield, take PA for example, (Admitted: 458 Matriculated: 361), So if they want 361 students, Do they send 458 acceptance? or (361 Acceptance, and 97 waiting-list)?</p>
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<p>The former. That’s what predicted yield is all about - figuring out how many acceptances to send out so that they end up with just the right number of matriculations.</p>
<p>The waiting list is the school’s “safety net” - just in case their prediction is off by a bit. The ideal situation for the school is not having to go to the waiting list at all.</p>
<p>Read neatoburrito’s post (above) once more - it explains it quite well.</p>