I was looking at https://www.college-kickstart.com/blog/item/waitlist-admission-rates-and-notification-dates which supposedly shows this year’s waitlist info to date, and noticed that Case Western has apparently taken 792 kids off their waitlist this year. Wouldn’t that mean that 2/3 of their freshman class came from the waitlist? Could that be a typo of some kind? I also see that Marquette has accepted 796 off their waitlist, which would be about a third of their freshman class.
Fascinating. I’m assuming that Case waitlisted high stats kids and this is a yield protection thing. Any other theories? I admit I haven’t taken the time to look up past waitlist stats…
Nothing “demonstrates interest” more than holding a waitlist position. This is a new technique for gaming the system, and it seems to have worked this year.
Looks like Case has had a yield of about 16%; so they must be trying new approaches to increase. Would be interesting to know the yield of the waitlist acceptances.
I was assuming that the 792 was accepted offers, but you are right, it could be declined offers as well. No way to know how many of those offers were accepted, I suppose.
I also wonder if these schools are 'need aware" for their wait-lists…some “need blind” schools are need-aware for WL.
A school certainly could improve its yield by accepting less students, and then going to their WL to fill spots…particularly if at that point, they’re need aware.
I said before that in the future, most schools will be filling 75% of their class through a combination of ED and WL (so only a quarter of a class would come through RD).
I think there is something wrong with that list. The one school I am familiar with is Tulane. They announced they are taking no one off their wait list this year, yet that link says they took 327. See the post below saying they will not be using the wait list:
The Case thread doesn’t indicate that kind of acceptance rate for WL, certainly my kid was on the WL and he just got bored that it went on for so long.
Very much hit and miss info. The Tulane link goes back to a 2012 Blog entry. WPI goes back to a 2011 posting. Some links just go to the College CDS which would be based on last year’s data. Some go to the college Waitlist FAQ which says what historical %ages have been. The Case Western info matches their current CDS so it’s based on last year’s data. http://www.case.edu/ir/media/caseedu/institutional-research/documents/pdfs/2014-2015-CDS.pdf
Those numbers were the official numbers for the Class of 2018. The school enrolled 1282 students and 792 were admitted through the WL. While the yield rate on WL admits is usually very high, the school might rely on a system that leaves plenty of leeway to admitted WL students.
Tulane’s process is unusual inasmuch as an unusually high number of students are accepted under non-binding Early Action. They don’t defer many students in that round. Most waitlisted students were probably RD, and therefore hadn’t demonstrated as much interested as the ED students. That’s just a theory, with no empirical data supporting it. It does seem as if many colleges have introduced an additional step in the admissions process, in order to weed out qualified applicants who are genuinely interested, and who will probably attend if accepted. Perhaps selective colleges should re-structure the entire system, so that this sorting can occur before May.
There was some discussion of this at a recent conference – there’s a perception that some colleges are using this to game the system, and not even extending offers to students on the waitlist until the student has orally confirmed that he/she will accept. Like winter/spring admissions, probably a different way to game the rankings system.
Could be. arabrab If kids are going to game the system by applying to ten or more colleges it wasn’t going to be long before the colleges protected themselves by coming up with a method to calculate a higher degree of interest in their college.
Hmm. Forget 25% of a class admitted in the RD round starting in the fall.
We may soon reach the somewhat absurd situation where only 10% of a class is filled through the RD round starting in the fall, with the rest filled by ED, WL, winter/spring admissions, and transfers.
On the one hand, this gives more opportunities to kids who really want to attend a school. On the other hand . . . probably only if you are full-pay.
Some schools may also start being need-blind and meet-full-need only in ED and RD as well (not WL, transfer, and winter/spring admits). This would make fin aid at those schools more akin to merit scholarships (you were good enough to be admitted through ED/RD and not through other channels).
Well, Case is used as a backup for a lot of top students. Instead of accepting a kid and finding out he is going to Northwestern or Cornell, they can wl the top candidates. If they accept the wl position then admissions knows that they do not have a top school lined up. Then they can wait a week or two and call student to ask if they are still interested. If the student still sounds interested, then admit them. That would significantly raise Case’s yield.
“If kids are going to game the system by applying to ten or more colleges it wasn’t going to be long before the colleges protected themselves”
I don’t think it is really gaming. With admission rates being so low, It is the only smart approach for a top student if they don’t have a hard hook. They have to be sure they get in somewhere.
The admission rates are low because so many kids are applying to so many colleges. Which came first the chicken or the egg? Low admission rates don’t mean anything except far more kids are applying for the same college seats which is a fixed number. Admissions percentages are artificial - and somewhat meaningless since kids can only attend one college.
@Much2learn, yep, privates in Case’s tier (good schools just below the near-Ivies like UMich/UVa/Georgetown/ND but clearly below the Ivies/equivalents) or lower may now either admit with merit money or WL good RD candidates. With some, they may even do both (first WL, and if you show that you are serious, throw merit money at you along with an admit).
The only school I applied to that engaged in such a practice for PhD (as far as physics is concerned) was Carnegie Mellon; unfortunately I got rejected there.
WUSTL, on the other hand, waitlisted me but it was just a bad year (when I was WL’ed at WUSTL, I was told I was a second-round admit)