My son was just put on the waitlist and will be accepting a spot on the waitlist for the fall and the spring semester. I wanted to know if he should reach out to his admission officer and inform her of his continued interest. We all know how important that is for Lehigh, but I wanted to make sure it was not overkill since he is accepting a spot on the wait list to begin with, is it redundant?
Also, is there any thing else that my son should do? He visited, had an interview etc so should he visit again?
Thanks for your input, and congrats to all who were accepted.
32 act 33 superscore gpa 3.8 un 3.95 w went on interview, visitied before that and met with the admissions officer when she came to his school. He wants to send her an email confirming interest… Anything else he should do?
Yes, I agree, but what if you say that and you have a change of heart? It is not as though it is a binding decision if you say " I will attend if taken off of the wait list" I am sure some folks say that and still enroll at other universities.
@euve69
If you are pretty confident that he wants to attend Lehigh, then making a strong case for why it is the best fit for your son would be helpful. There are usually a limited number of waitlist places that will be offered to students on the waitlist, so they are likely to give them to students that they are confident will attend, and who have a compelling story.
Thanks. Yes, that is the plan right now, but as I stated to someone else, what happens if he changes his mind? These are 17-18 year old students here, they can be fickle as well. My question is simply; what if he does reiterate interest etc and gets accepted, then says sorry I decided not to attend. What happens then? It is not binding but I was just curious as to what you think. Thanks
@euve69
I don’t think anything happens if he changes his mind. However, I try to be honest with them.
First, I would wait for another week until results are out for most other schools, including Ivies. That improves your confidence about what you can comfortably say and their confidence that you are sincere.At that point, perhaps he wants to attend Lehigh but also has a top 20 waitlist. Realistically, a top twenty waitlist admission could happen but is probably quite unlikely. I would view that top 20 waitlist as a lottery ticket. Therefore, I would focus on making a compelling case to Lehigh, while knowing that lottery ticket is still out there.
In contrast, if the student is undecided between, say, Lehigh and Case Western, but was admitted to Case Western, I would probably just enroll at Case and not campaign for Lehigh.
Does anyone know how they actually about officially accepting a spot on the waitlist? My daughter said her portal doesn’t seem to have any way to indicate that you are accepting a spot.
If he has any new accomplishments in the next several weeks, email them and reiterate interest. Schools usually start to go to their waitlists in early May, so he needs to decide where to deposit by May 1 (will just lose that deposit if he gets off a waitlist later).
@euve69 I know of one instance where a family desperately wanted their high stat kid who was waitlisted to get into a particular mid-high tier school that they called the admissions office together with the director of the Guidance department and told the admissons officer that their kid would definitely attend if taken off the waitlist. The family was full pay. It is uncertain if such a strategy would work for a top level school like Lehigh but I would recommend doing something like this only if your kid would absolutely attend. Because if the Guidance office sticks their neck out and your kid gets accepted and does not attend, it will hurt future applicants from the high school. The university will either accept less students or will no longer trust the Guidance department’s word on future applicants to the university.
I agree 1000000% no way would I ever get the guidance office involved unless my son guaranteed me he was going no matter what. The high school would look bad and the regional rep for Lehigh would never trust the guidance office again. I am having my son send an email reiterating strong interest to the regional rep. If that is not good enough, too bad my son will be happy at his other in state choice.
I am a bit late to this thread, but when I received wait list and accepted, I reached out to associate director of additional to console in additional steps. She stated that “accepting your spot on the wait list is step one” and to “feel free to send [her] any updates (grades, extra curricular activities) that you feel would be relevant” as well to “please keep in touch with your continued interest”. I think it’s highly important to express your desire to attend Lehigh if it is your first choice. They would rather spend time and effort looking over a student who is almost 100% willing to accept their spot then someone who would back out and they would have to spend more time looking for someone else.
