<p>I heard that waitlisted applicants are qualified to attend the school but were not given admissions; but Harvard said a majority of its applicants whom they reject are qualified. Does that mean that the waitlist people were actually just randomly chosen from a pile of rejected applications?</p>
<p>I am waitlisted at Harvard, along with Columbia and Stanford. But I have a feeling that I was waitlisted by pure luck because the people I know who were rejected seemed to be better qualified than I am.</p>
<p>The decision to waitlist someone is no more random than the decision to accept that person. Just because the majority of applicants are academically qualified doesn’t mean that the admissions office is hopelessly at a loss as to how to select a class. Harvard feels that it is capable of drawing distinctions between incredibly qualified people, and it seems reasonable to assume that the same metrics are used in choosing whom to waitlist.</p>
<p>Harvard also picks classes designed to make the class work. Maybe the rejected people would not have “balanced/” the class. But if you end up being accepted, you may make it more well-rounded :)</p>
<p>It’s my understanding (from others on CC) that if a student who indicated that they were coming to Harvard changes their mind, H does not have the waitlist ranked, but goes to the list to find someone who brings talents and background similar to the person who dropped. A mathematician is replaced by a mathematician, a soprano by a soprano, a playwright by a playwright. With the majority of the applicant pool possessing similar academic credentials, those value-added talents would probably become a greater tipping point at Harvard than at schools where the academic stats are not so closely bunched.</p>