IS Using a template Waitlist Update Bad?

Have you looked up the waitlist stats from previous years at these schools? At many of them, your odds are going to be greater for being struck by lightning than getting off the waitlist. If this is the case, you need to move on and concentrate on schools where you have been admitted, sending the message described by @TopTier to your first choice school in order to maintain the microscopic chance that something breaks your way.