<p>I applied to a lot of schools, so I realize that the probability of being waitlisted increases, but I was wondering if there's something (or a lack of something) in my application that may have influenced receiving so many during the regular decision round. </p>
<p>I realize that the admissions process is holistic and unpredictable, no one knows why but the admissions committees, and there's nothing I can do to change the results. But I'm merely curious and thought I'd ask and hear opinions. I'll be honest and say that I expected to be accepted at a few of the places I was waitlisted at.</p>
<p>I'm definitely writing a letter of interest to Harvard, so I was wondering if there were any deficiencies that might be helpful to address in addition to my continued interest in the school. Please don't take this post as me complaining in any way; I'm very grateful for and happy with my options...I'm pretty close to a final decision! :)</p>
<p>I've posted my stats on results threads, so I won't post them again here. You can see them by going to my recent posts.</p>
<p>Accepted: Dartmouth, WashU in St. Louis, Rice, UVA, Cornell Waitlisted: Hopkins, Duke, Harvard, Northwestern, Brown, Columbia, Amherst, Williams
**Rejected: **Princeton, Yale, Penn (Wharton)</p>
<p>The general answer is that the more schools a single applicant applies to, the more waitlists will come into play. Universities have an increasing challenge of gaging the yield, and this has gotten worse and will continue to, in proportion to how-many-schools-to-apply-to become the ‘new average’ for HS seniors. We are making our own bed…
To you specifically- you seem like a worthy candidate to all the schools you applied to, and some of them find you just as worthy as their admits. But you may not have made your applications super school-specific, so that each school has a strong indication you really will attend if admitted. Or you may not have shown intense focus and interest in that super-selective school in all the ways you could have. (I don’t know this; I’m just trying to help you brainstorm for an answer.) Another casualty of applying to so many schools is that no one can give the sort of attention that clearly says there’s no place they’d rather be to all of them. Back in pre-historic times, when I went through this, applying to FOUR schools was a lot, and you could do a lot to show how much you know and want to go there. You could mention specific faculty members and their research, and show that you’ve read their academic papers. How do you do anything like that with sixteen universities?</p>
<p>You have good choices. I know some think March is the hard month. For DS last year April was harder, with great viable choices. I wish you the very best.</p>