<p>Do some colleges actually wait list students who they think are "overqualified" because they assume they won't attend if outright admitted, or is this something top students tell themselves to get over the sting?</p>
<p>I got into Boston College (and their honors program; top 5% of accepted students) and Lafayette College (as a Marquis Scholar), among others, but got wait listed at Lehigh and Wesleyan.</p>
<p>What's your take on this?</p>
<p>Different schools have different criteria. </p>
<p>Some schools use “Demonstrated Interest in the School” as a criteria. This is a pretty clear indication that they’re interested in yield, and may reject some ‘more qualified’ students if they don’t think you’ll come. Lehigh falls into this category, and they’re pretty open about it.</p>
<p>There are many cases where someone is accepted at a school that is rated higher than a school they’re rejected from. (e.g., accepted at Harvard rejected at Wash U). However, when you’re dealing with schools that have 20% or less acceptance rates (Wash U for example) it would be surprising if this did not occur.</p>
<p>In your case – Hey BC is a great school, and the honors program is quite an honor. I hope it was your first choice nd you feel great.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply. I do really like BC, although it’s not my number one. I was just surprised by Lehigh because based on what they had said during my visit I had thought I had a better chance of getting in there than at BC.</p>
<p>I understand where you’re coming from, especially with the BC Honors.</p>
<p>Lehigh is a very hard school to predict for many students. For example, if we look at what they say in the Common Data Set – Rigor of Schedule and Recommendations are much more important to them than Class Rank and Grades. Yet they also say that 95% of their students are in the top 10th of their HS class.</p>
<p>In all honesty, Lehigh is probably harder to get into than its reputation. When your parents were going through college, it probably would have been considered a safety school for many students, if it was even on the radar. I don’t think it’s the case now. </p>
<p>Still, it must feel good to have such an excellent option as BC.</p>
<p>It does. I’m certainly not complaining about it</p>
<p>I know two girls from my son’s school that just got accepted to Lehigh who are solid B students with great EC’s…so who knows?</p>
<p>“Do some colleges actually wait list students who they think are “overqualified” because they assume they won’t attend if outright admitted.”</p>
<p>Yes. Lots of schools take ‘demonstrated interest’ into account, and will take a less ‘stellar’ student who really wants to attend over someone who they clearly think is using them as a safety.</p>
<p>Think about it from their perspective: Wouldn’t you prefer the student who was begging to come and grateful for the opportunity over the one who grudgingly shows up because they didn’t get into their top 5 choices?</p>