@sadieshadow you are a dear!!! Mwah! Congrats on having such an easy decision!
Sending good thoughts your way, @buuzn03! Hang in there!!
Turtle, I mean @PhotographerMom, thanks! We still have two to go and it only takes one!!! And luckily by that time, I’ll be off work and be able to be sipping the cocktail when I get that news…I see a Mexican Mule (?) in my near future… 
Want to make sure everyone understands that more students than will make up a class are being accepted today. The schools have a good feel for their yield (I.e. The number of kids who accept.) So, when a school knows their yield they will accept x (class size) + the number they expect to decline them. As a result, someone declining them does NOT mean that they will go to the waitlist. It is only if they factored their yield wrong (more accepted kids turned them down than they expected), will they go to WL. It is not at all a “one for one” when someone turns them down. Regardless, if you know for sure that you aren’t attending, the information needs to get to them so that they can properly evaluate whether their yield calculation was correct.
Our experience is that schools will start calculating yield after the first return visit.
My son visited one school and their yield prediction was on the low side so they ended up with too many students.
I think there is more wait list movement after A10. It is then when someone might move or lose their job or something so that a registered student can not attend. That number is not that big.
For the party poopers in the house, I am well aware of the yields…it is not that different from the Ivy League medical school admissions with which I’m very familiar…but let a girl hold out some hope and appreciate the support and encouragement from others in a dire time…because even though the odds are stacked against us right now, it is still possible that a slot opens…hey, someone has to win the lottery. For those of you who’ve been so encouraging, thank you…I’m going to try to stay optimistic. If nothing else, you’ve shown that there are still good hearted people in the world.
Now…where were those cocktail recipes…?
@buuzn03 I have written previously on waitlists, having gone through this on our first M10 with my waitlisted daughter, and have always done so in an encouraging manner. However, this is a discussion for parents and it is really important that we understand the issues so that we can properly support our kids. I am glad you already understood the issue, and can properly counsel your child. However, it did not sound like some of the other parents did understand it, hence, my post. Being on a waitlist is, perhaps, even more stressful than applying, and my heart goes out to everyone in that position. It is important, however, to think about a Plan B and make sure your child knows that you are excited for and invested in that Plan B. They are the ones being judged here, not us, and it is difficult to process at age 13, especially if they feel like they are getting rejected a second time if the waitlist doesn’t work out.
Hugs to you, @buuzn03. Hang in there.
I had the identical experience as Kthor626 and like you I thought that there has to be some movement on the list. And this board tracked it and there were hardly any.
My son reapplied again this year and he was accepted. So which ever way you go, I wish you the best.
For those of you declining offers with FA from schools which have FA waitlists (Gunnery, for example…) – it is very helpful to decline ASAP if you know you will not be attending. There are a lot of kids on the FA waitlists and it could make all the difference to one (or more) of those kids, who dream of being able to enroll.
@laenen & @Kthor626 I appreciate your POVs and input…the realism is not what I want to hear right now, obviously but it is the harsh reality. The other harsh reality is that those accepted and know they won’t attend certain schools will hold onto those spots until the last second not realizing that they are affecting others’ sanity and prolonging the pain. As the waiting on the unknown of M10 was painful, if there’s any way to shorten the unknown of the waitlist, I’m going to push for it!! We are prepared for plan B, but would like to minimize the wait, if at all possible. Again–kudos to those not in our position and thanks for the well-wishes! I will toast to you as I drown our sorrows. (Maybe these last two notifications will just have me toasting all of us–again, remaining optimistic!
Yes, my daughter also reapplied last year and had great results. However, that first waitlist year was ROUGH.
This past year a waitlisted CC kiddo reached out to me many times by PM and was holding out hope until August. I kept telling him that it was “possible” but also encouraged him to find some positive things about Plan B. That he was talking to me and not a parent was worrisome. Also had to spend some time explaining to him about yields and waitlists, as he didn’t get it at all. Heartbreaking.
Ew…that is heartbreaking. My DA went to school after the morning rush, but seemed ok with it all. Disappointed but ok. If this evening bears similar news, we have a 6 hour car ride to hash it all out!
Waitlisted for Andover. :((
In the spirit of my CC friends who have not shied away from baring it all re this journey, I will overshare a bit.
Our oldest applied to 1 day school for 9th. She was well- qualified and nailed her interview - her parents, not so much! In retrospect, I feel we tried too hard and raised some red flags. In Feb, I was trolling the portal and an acceptance letter was there! But when the official letter arrived, dd was wait-listed. So not only was she devastated, I had spent the previous 3 weeks on cloud 9 with my “secret”. Thank god I didn’t tell her.
The following year, dd applied to 3-4 BS and we needed FA. Her dream school called in advance of 3/10 and said they loved her, but they had 6x more kids that they were ready to accept than they had FA to offer them. Did we want to be placed on the wait list or could we become FP? Grandma stepped up - we called our AO, the portals opened, and …DD was wait-listed at 3 of her 4 schools including her dream school that we had just spoken to 2 days earlier. The 4th school was a rejection.
But we were one of the rare lucky ones and DD was offered a spot in time to go to the last revisit day. The moral of this story is nice things do sometimes happen to unhooked, under financed, good kids. Is it wise to believe in unicorns? Probably not but those of us who have seen them with our own eyes can still believe! Chin up for the kiddos but it’s ok if you aren’t ready for tough love just yet - there will be plenty more wait list threads to freak out over in April. I will be right there with you too because our younger kiddo has faced major medical issues for the past year and can’t even apply until April or May (Funny how quickly priorities change; we will be happy at any school who has a spot, even though she is qualified to go to many of the schools hyped here) Sending hugs to everyone today… and I am ready for that cocktail now please!
@chemmchimney hugs to your youngest! As a cancer survivor, I can assure you good health is the priority and then better things will come and you will appreciate them more!
In the spirit of giving those on the WL some hope… It’s true that schools make offers anticipating that a certain percentage won’t accept. However, yields vary year-to-year at every school. As a result, schools are conservative in their offers to avoid being oversubscribed. As a result, a handful of folks will eventually move off the waitlist at most schools. (At the risk of stating the obvious, Andover, Exeter, and SPS are not representative. Their yields are much higher and more predictable than other schools.)
I have declined another two schools with FA with value in teens this morning. That should free up some spot and FA for others.
@msvmp27 – it doesn’t free up any space. That is the point that is being made. There is X% that they have calculated that is not going to accept. You are now part of the X%. It does not change the # of invites UNTIL the number of turn downs EXCEED the X%.