Is it just me, or are there a lot of waitlists?

Applying to College
1

<p>I dunno, it might just be something I said/did/wrote about, but the majority (huge plurality) of schools I applied to waitlisted me. From what I've heard, though, a waitlist is as good as a delayed rejection due to the slim chances of ever making it off the waitlist.</p>

<p>I mean I wasn't expecting a slew of acceptances. In fact, many of the schools I was waitlisted at I was expecting solid rejections. But still, I'm just a bit disappointed in the lack of finality even though "decisions" are already out, I was totally prepared for a clean-cut black or white decision from each of my schools (I knew waitlisting existed, of course, but I always thought it was much rarer than this). Plus I got waitlisted at schools I had expected to be "matches" as well as "reaches" which I found peculiar as well.</p>

<p>Is this something that is happening to a lot of other people this year, or is this something that happens every year, or is it mainly just me?</p>

<p>Accepted (7)
Harvey Mudd College
University of Alabama
University of Notre Dame
University of Southern California
University of Virginia
Vassar College
Wake Forest University</p>

<p>Waitlisted <a href="12">b</a>**
Brown University
Caltech
Columbia University
Cornell University
Dartmouth College
Duke University
Johns Hopkins University
Northwestern University
Swarthmore College
University of Chicago
University of Pennsylvania
Washington and Lee University</p>

<p>Denied Admission (4)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (#1 choice :( )
Princeton University
Stanford University
Yale University</p>

<p>Oh, yeah, I applied to a ton of schools. Woops.</p>

2

<p>Wow thts a lot.
Apparently this year is the most competitive year ever and has the highest numver of waitlists</p>

3

<p>I mean what’s the “waitlist” rate got to be? </p>

<p>I mean what’s a decision spectrum bound to look like? </p>

<p>|-----------------Rejections---------------|-W-|----A----|
??</p>

<p>I mean there’s got to be more rejections than waitlists at most selective schools. But I would think that, logically, there would be more acceptances than waitlists too. Since the point of the waitlist is to fill in seats if not enough people accept their spots at the school. So why would they waitlist more people than there are seats, unless the school expects everyone they accept to turn them down?</p>

<p>So… did I just happen to get really (un)lucky and just have the perfect amount of credentials to be considered but not over the threshold to be accepted? I mean what are the odds?</p>

4

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<p>^Perhaps you underestimated the challenge of admissions to many of the elite schools. You do not indicate which of the schools at which you were Waitlisted that you considered a match, but I dont see many schools on this list that dont present a significant admissions challenge for almost anyone.</p>

5

<p>Wow thats a lot of schools. Well look at it like this: you probably have a decent chance of getting into at least one of those wait list schools. I’m betting that you’ll have a VERY busy April!</p>

6

<p>@Hinsdale
I hesitated to include that statement because I was sure it would be picked out and scrutinized. I’m glad I’m psychic.
I looked at the acceptance rates and median test scores (compared against my own scores) and ranked my colleges by how likely I thought it was that I’d get in. Then I had some hazy idea about which schools were safeties, which were matches, and which were reaches. ie. I ranked my schools from 1-23, I made a dotted line separating 1+2 as safeties, another line for 3-6 as matches, and then 7-23 were my reaches, but I obviously couldn’t be sure where the most appropriate place to draw the line(s) would be.
Specifically, I think I had the vague impression that Washington and Lee and Northwestern would be more of matches, but again I had no way of really knowing.
What I had meant by that statement was the medley of schools that waitlisted me of varying selectivity. I would have guessed many of the schools like Columbia and Brown would have rejected me, and had some hope that Washington and Lee would accept me. At the same time I wasn’t at all confident about USC and was certain I’d be rejected from Harvey Mudd (even though they accepted me). At least I have no logical objections to the schools that rejected me flat-out. :P</p>

<p>@Kcombs
I’m hoping that at least one of them will accept me (I’ve enlisted an army to keep their fingers crossed for me). What do you mean by busy April? I thought waitlist updates didn’t come out till after May 1st?</p>

<p>Regardless of any of that I’m more concerned about the sheer number of waitlists when I was under the impression that waitlisting is the least frequent decision assigned. Unless colleges have started distributing false hope for the fun of it.</p>

7

<p>Well i think a closer examination of the midpoint SAT scores and admission rates I think you would have found Cornell and JHU are slightly less challenging admissions then NU - so they would possibly have been closer to a match for you than NU. But, as I think you discovered by your outcomes, you may have drawn your “match” line a little bit high. </p>

<p>Interestingly (because it never generally works so uniformly) based on a typical well stat’d applicant (I dont know your stats but for example assume 3.8+ GPA, 2240+ SAT), if I were to rate your choices from 1-23 - I would have put them almost exactly as they resulted, with your rejections as Reaches, with your Waitlists as Low Reaches, and with your acceptances being the matches. With the exception of swapping Harvey Mudd and Washington and Lee.</p>

<p>Anyway Harvey Mudd, USC, and ND are great schools - congratulations.</p>

8

<p>I think there ARE a lot more waitlists this year. I’ve been following CC for a few years now, and this seems to be the year for waitlists.</p>

<p>Are you going to stay on all of these waitlists? I assume you’ll put down a deposit somewhere in the meantime. Good luck to you - I hope you make it into one you LOVE!</p>

9

<p>I think I’ll go ahead and stay on all of these waitlists. There’s no school I have been accepted to that I know for sure I’d pick over any of the waitlist schools (nor any school on that waitlist that I know I won’t pick over any of the acceptance schools). The main thing I’ll be concerned with though is financial aid packages.</p>

<p>Actually I hadn’t thought about it yet, but financial aid isn’t compromised by getting into a school off the waitlist is it…? I hope not.</p>

<p>As for going to a school I’ll love I’m already psyched about many of the schools I’ve gotten into. Pending financial aid, I wouldn’t mind at all if these 7 were the only schools I’d have to choose from.</p>

<p>Has anyone else had similar waitlist experiences?</p>

10

<p>erm, bump. Or not. Whatever.</p>

11

<p>OP Your impression that there are a lot of WLs is due in large part to your outlier action of applying to 23 schools. If another person applies to 7, gets in 2, gets 2 WLs and rejected at 3 – he/she isn’t going to feel what you feel.</p>

<p>Your twenty-three apps plus your being strong enough an applicant has combined to produce your situation – but that’s certainly not the norm whatsoever.</p>

<p>To answer your question: "Is it just me?"
Yes</p>

12

<p>So
1.) It’s me.
2.) That I was a “strong enough an applicant” to be waitlisted at, say John Hopkins would lead me to want to believe I would be more likely rejected at, say Columbia (or vice-versa with waitlist at Columbia = acceptance at JHU) but that should be chalked up to randomness in college admissions, each school looking for different things in their incoming class, etc.
3.) That I would fall into the relatively small percentage of waitlists at so many schools (assuming this model holds
|-----------------Rejections---------------|-W-|----A----|) would be more like a fluke than some national trend (along the lines of #2).</p>

<p>I guess those would be my conclusions.</p>

<p>Thanks for the help then. Still perplexed but that’s something I’ll get over in time.</p>

13

<p>I wonder if the schools you applied to, all saw 22 other schools that you applied to, and felt they did not want to Use one of their acceptance spots on someone who had a potentially small chance of matriculating. Their yield is important to them for their rankings, which they take seriously.</p>

14

<p>The high school graduating class of 2011 is one of the most competitive class anyone has seen in a long time! there have been a TON of waitlists because of this! im soo glad I wasn’t in this graduating class because EVERYONE i know who is, is tremendously intelligent and well rounded.</p>

15

<p>RMCF21, I agree with you on this. The graduating class at my S HS is amazing this year. So many tied for top spot etc. We all say that we wouldn’t want to be the ones deciding between them for admission. Most of us in that convo have older kids or younger kids that we are comparing classes too. Not just saying that because we think “our kids” are amazing haha. I also feel bad for the kids in this year. Such tough competition among talented kids combined with kids applying to so many schools just make the pool at each school huge and qualified.</p>

16

<p>I just mean that you seem to have a lot of schools to visit, and a lot of string pulling/letter writing to do to help your waitlist chances. That and the freaking out that I’d be doing if I were you with all that waiting!</p>

17

<p>I think they waitlist so many because the process is becoming so unpredictable. It’s harder and harder to predict how many students will accept an offer of admission, especially at those “second tier” schools that are on the rise, those that have historically seen very low yields and are now experiencing yield increases. The waitlist is a safety net that allows them to ensure they can fill their class if their conservatively high yield estimate is incorrect. Overshooting yield is their biggest fear.</p>

18

<p>I think there is an instability in the college admissions process. This has been brewing for years, but seems to have really manifested itself this year. I don’t have any data, but my sense around our high school is that this year is very tough. </p>

<p>Every year, the number of applications that an admissions department must read goes up, while the admissions rate goes down. Because the admissions rates go down, the following year, prudent students feel like they must submit even more applications. As a result, these admissions officers workload increases. There was an recent broadcast on NPR about how the Amherst admissions office almost randomly chose who to admit and who to waitlist. </p>

<p>Additionally, because students are filing so many more applications, it is very difficult for colleges to forecast their yields, so those that want to be conservative, tend to use the waitlist more, and those that don’t risk overcrowding next year’s freshman class. This is especially important at those schools that are rural and don’t have a backup way to house a huge overflow. While I was in college Boston University sometimes underestimated their yields and apartment vacancy rates dropped to below 2% and some students were housed in the Sheraton. If that happened at a place like Carleton College in the middle of rural Minnesota, where would those students live. </p>

<p>Finally, there is a practice, such as I believe has been done at Washington University in St. Louis, though it seems to have stopped last year, which was to waitlist a huge percentage of students who applied RD. Though I have no proof, it almost seemed like they didn’t read a huge fraction of applications until those students agreed to be on the waitlist. By waitlisting so many applicants, they were able to greatly improve their yield which moved them up the rankings. Furthermore, those who didn’t accept a position on the waitlist, which was the majority, allowed there admissions rate to drop substantially which also moved them up in the rankings, in some sense not really hurting the applicants, because they didn’t require a supplement. Presumably those that didn’t accept a spot on the waitlist were happier not to get rejected, and are probably happy wherever they did get accepted. </p>

<p>Part of the reason this is all happening is because each successive year, the population of HS graduates will continue to decrease; it peaked in 2009. As a results colleges up and down the food chain are trying to jockey for position so that they don’t end up with unfilled seats, or have to increase their admissions rate. </p>

<p>On the plus side, there are only so many applicants. Most of them will end up happy somewhere. I suspect that there will a lot people who get off multiple waitlists. I suspect there will be people who come of one waitlist, agree to matriculate, and then get off another waitlist. There will a lot of summer melt. It’s going to be very interesting, though stressful for many applicants and stressful for some admissions departments. </p>

<p>In the future, I believe that ED applicants will see their chances improve because there will be fewer applicants, and the school’s ability to manage the increasing risk of RD yield will be limited. I don’t know if this is a good thing, but for students who choose well, apply ED and end up happy, it will relieve a lot of stress. For everyone else, I think the uncertainty will increase.</p>

19

<p>I’ve applied to 4 schools, one waitlist (to my top school) 2 rejections and i’m still waiting on the 4th.</p>

<p>i’m rather nervous because i really want into my top school, and i dont know how to improve my chances…</p>

20

<p>So you have no place to go in the fall yet?</p>