NY Times: Top colleges have bigger waiting lists. Duke's is twice size of frosh class

Parent Cafe
101

<p>bchan1, welcome to CC. I like your approach. </p>

<p>One of my kids knows someone who is gritting it out at an Ivy but whose heart was clearly elsewhere. We also know someone who picked a flagship and now has multiple articles in major scientific journals because the person was able to continue doing research at local labs during during the school year as well as the summers. Will be VERY nicely situated for grad school apps next year.</p>

<p>Duke is now getting the criticism that WashU got a few years ago for their heavy waitlisting of candidates.</p>

102

<p>

</p>

<p>I totally agree. JHS, your post makes sense if the wait lists were a reasonable size, but this year they aren’t. There is such a slim possibility of being admitted from them, wait lists are not supposed to be a repository for students the colleges didn’t want to say no to.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>No, that isn’t really an option. Everyone knows to be admitted from a wait list you have to push, which means more emotional energy invested in a college where you have almost no chance of being admitted.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>That’s not clear at all. More than one college has said they consider putting a student on their wait list a compliment because the student was good enough to be admitted, there just wasn’t enough room for them. They are spinning it like they are doing the student a big favor by putting them on their wait list.</p>

<p>JHS, if the wait lists were a reasonable size then I would agree with your post. I think the article is terrible press for Duke. I also think Duke was unfairly singled out since huge wait lists are the reality at so many schools this year.</p>

103

<p>and while we are at it; let’s not exclusively attack Duke about this (just because they were in the NYTImes)…over on the UMich thread, students are basically still waiting for the ultimate waitlist letter that most receive after having their app in before October, getting deferred and then this…ridiculous way to operate…and then there is always Wash U…just because Duke is inthe paper they are being singled out.</p>

104

<p>I don’t see any indication that waitlists this year are that much bigger than they were in the past. I think the colleges are trying to deal with extreme uncertainty about their yields, due to economic conditions and to the steady increase in applications per student at the top level. The harder it is to project yield accurately, the more they need to accept fewer students outright and look to the waitlist to fill out the class if need be. And if it’s hard to project the yield from accepted students, it’s even harder to predict the yield from waitlisted students. I think, realistically, a school like Duke would need to make 6-8 waitlist offers in March for each candidate it wants on hand in May, and if it wants a broad selection of candidates in May, you get to offering 3,000 applicants a waitlist place pretty quickly.</p>

105

<p>^Except for Duke. </p>

<p>And I thought all the news the past year or two was how, despite the economy, yields were not changing as people initially worried. I do not think it is so difficult to predict after multiple years of a bad economy, and this is their BUSINESS. They should and can predict with a lot more accuracy than such a long long waitlist would suggest is needed. I just don’t buy it. If it costed them to overbook to fill the plane so to speak (as it does the airlines), you’d see it reigned in; in this industry, since the burden falls entirely on the student, they exploit it. </p>

<p>It just seems to be dragging out what is already an insane process to begin with. Now you can read about strategies and efforts to get off a waitlist…absurd. </p>

<p>They really should start thinking about alternative methods or hybrids of such, be it borrowing from residency matching systems, or even course selection models I’ve seen used in MBA programs (that require students to weight their preferences). The current system doesn’t seem longrun sustainable.</p>

106

<p>Re post #97: I think Duke is TELLING THE TRUTH as to why it has a big wait list. Sure it could have “spun” the result by saying there were other reasons, but I respect it for telling the truth. The publicity at least lets those waitlisted know how huge the wait list is. So, in that sense the publicity is good for the kids on it. </p>

<p>One thing. I don’t know about other colleges, but the Ivy Group used to have a “drop dead” date in June. So, if you didn’t get in by that date, you knew you weren’t in. Nobody got in off the WL after that date. I assume that’s still the state of affairs. So, while I agree the # of those on the WL is absurd, at least they don’t keep kids hanging on to the last minute.</p>

107

<p>Actually, the last few years some of the Ivies have had an “extended wait list” well beyond mid-June. They definitely pared down their waitlists in June, though.</p>

<p>Back when I was in college, there were a couple of kids in my freshman dorm who were offered places at the absolute last minute. One of them supposedly was already at orientation for another college. So they must have had SOME kind of waitlist after June, even if the kids didn’t know they were on it.</p>

<p>Before my son started college, he was given the names of two roommates and told he was in a triple. He was able to contact one; the other never responded. On move-in day there were three beds and three desks in the room, but only two kids. The college wouldn’t take the extra bed and desk out of the room for a few weeks, but they never put anyone in there. And a few years before, the woman in the room directly across from my daughter left at the end of orientation week and never returned. The point being that slots become vacant long after June, and if you were the admissions dean you would want to be filling those slots too, if you could.</p>

108

<p>

</p>

<p>This is by no means universal. Where I’m sitting, no one thinks twice if the valedictorian goes to U of Illinois. It’s seen as an excellent choice and no one frets “how come he / she didn’t apply to HYPSCM”. The norms of the frantic upper middle class northeastern suburbs (and to a lesser extent the west coast) aren’t everyone’s norms!</p>

109

<p>I can’t find Duke’s Common Data Set, but I can find Vanderbilt’s. Duke and Vanderbilt are reasonably comparable – regional rivals, roughly the same size, similar selectivity, although Duke is a little higher.</p>

<p>Anyway, last year Vanderbilt offered admission to 4,100 students (including 200 from the waitlist). It offered 3,100 students a place on the waitlist, and 1,400 of them stayed on the waitlist. </p>

<p>Those numbers are pretty much spot on where Duke is this year, at least as far as we know. Duke may have increased its waitlist by 33%, and may even have done it more or less inadvertently, as it claims, but its waitlist is by no means extraordinary.</p>

<p>The article trumpets Yale’s increase from 850 to 1,000. Well, five years ago, it had a waitlist of 1,239, of whom 8 were admitted. And three years ago, the first year Yale provided information in the current format, only 1/3 of students offered a place on Yale’s waitlist stayed on the waitlist. And that’s Yale, with a yield more than twice Duke’s if you adjust for ED.</p>

<p>The article notes that Dartmouth – also pretty comparable to Duke – made 1,740 waitlist offers. Well, guess what? Based on the size difference between Dartmouth and Duke, that’s equivalent to a waitlist of 3,000 at Duke, a couple hundred short of where they are. But Dartmouth’s waitlist last year was around 1,660. </p>

<p>This is pretty sloppy journalism from the New York Times. Nothing much has changed.</p>

110

<p>^ Good sleuthing. I think you’ve convinced me on this now that it’s not new, which also undermines some of my earlier arguments. Though…maybe started by a Duke press release though, which would match my theory that it’s still for marketing purposes.</p>

111

<p>As I see it the wait list problem is a few years old, not new to this year certainly. The Yale data from five years ago is a surprise to me. That’s interesting.</p>

112

<p>Working in a hs college counseling office, we get admission updates from Duke a few times throughout the year. The theme is always - woe is us - we have so many applicants, we don’t know what to do. </p>

<p>I also had the “pleasure” of attending an info session/tour at Duke in March 2009. Despite the fact that they knew it was spring break and would be crowded, they made no accommodations whatsoever. There was seating for about 200 people and 400 showed up. I realize some may have shown up without registering, but there was no concern on the part of admissions. The tour was crowded and the tour guide was pretentious and entitled. The whole day could be summed up by them saying, we’re Duke, we don’t have to try.</p>

<p>Adding insult to injury, S1, with stellar stats, applied ED and was deferred and then rejected in RD round. Ok, fine, he had other good options. In April, he received an e-mail from our regional admissions rep congratulating him on his acceptance to Duke and asking if he had any questions. I called her to ask was the e-mail a mistake, and she was out, spoke with one of the top people in admissions. To say he was nasty would be an understatement. He could barely bring himself to utter an apology, just stating that the e-mail was obviously a mistake and that we needed to get over it. Rude beyond belief.</p>

<p>Duke is obviously not my favorite school and the shenanigans going on there with admissions this year and the WL do not surprise me in the least. Ok, rant over.</p>

113

<p>oh boy, RM…do I have a very similar story to tell you…with another school though (in the same geographic area as Duke…)…</p>

114

<p>JHS’s post is spot on. There has been a series this month in the Duke Chronicle with in depth looks into Duke’s admissions. The series was well researched and revealing. We of course like Guttentag because he admitted our son, a high stats no hook kid from a not good high school four years ago and I have a son at Vandy this year. Vandy has an increase of 67% in applications since 2007. That is not a typo. Vandy is changing very rapidly and is now getting targeted like Duke for all the Ivy hopefuls who consider Duke Vandy Rice to be next tier re level of difficulty. Vandy’s admission is 16% this year but that will vary from college to college when final numbers are in…it is easier to get in some colleges than others there. We noted that the Alum we saw walking around on Homecoming at Vandy do not resemble the freshman class my son matriculated with in August. Exciting times at Vandy now.</p>

<p>I asked Duke 09 son this morning if he didn’t think 3000 plus on the waitlist was ridiculous and he agreed that it was silly and serves no one, although it certainly is a statement on the overall qualifications of those who were not rejected. His point however has to do with the fact that Duke IS getting applications from those students who apply to over 10 colleges…often over 15 colleges and that he wishes that only students “sincerely matched and keen on Duke would apply” rather than getting every single kid who applies to multiple Ivies also sending an application to Duke. Not sure how that train can ever be stopped though…the over 15 applications per high stats kid. And as has been stated several times…the Ivies should not be targeted as a block. Brown and Dartmouth and Cornell are not similar schools.</p>

<p>In all honesty, Duke 09 kid only applied to 3 Reaches…Bowdoin, Duke and Dartmouth and only applied to 7 schools total…and in retrospect, should have been only six schools. Why? Because he would have gotten into his match schools which were financial and admission safeties and he would have been happy and well served at them so there was no reason to apply to every reach school and Ivy on the planet. He got seriously keen on his schools and appreciated each of them and couldn’t find energy to love other colleges past the number 6 or 7. I don’t know that reducing number of applications will every happen but it is part of the problem.</p>

<p>I agree that Guttentag could have given a better explanation than “ran out of time” to whittle the class down for the wait list. However in his defense, the in depth articles stated that his staff had a very fulsome method for reviewing applications that would have to be revised since it was not able to handle the volume in the last two years. I understood his statement re “ran out of time” to mean that over 3000 kids were fully qualified to be in Duke, and they “ran out of time” to rank and reject a third or more of them. I do hope they reduce the waitlist to a less crazy number. Duke’s yield is only going down this year. My son loved Duke and met people there that he would not have found at some of his match colleges, but I do believe his match colleges would have worked him just as hard and taught him as much in the classrooms. I hate to see kids without true love for their match colleges which in most cases really deserve more respect.</p>

115

<br>

<br>

<p>I agree that applying to 14 schools is over the top, but the kids who do are not “taking up spaces” that rightfully should go to another kid. You only take up more than one space if you commit to enroll and put down a deposit at more than one school. If you simply decline an offer of admission the school will just fill the spot from the waitlist. And if it’s the more desirable choice for the waitlist kid s/he will accept the offer. Nobody gets cheated.</p>

116

<p>Actually, with the issue of yield, a kid who declines an offer of admission at most schools, just helps to make sure that the school doesn’t over enroll their freshman class. Even Harvard has an 89% yield rate, meaning that 11% of students who are accepted at Harvard decline their offer.</p>

117

<p>coureur, I used to believe that what you say, that they aren’t taking up spaces until they enroll. But I don’t anymore. They are indeed “taking up spaces.” There would be absolutely no need to waitlist 3,000 kids if the intial yields were much, much higher. It is perverse thinking to think that “low yields” are good/“high yields” are bad. It even sounds like Chicago is caving to that ridiculous pressure. What percentage of those kids that were admitted aren’t attending? What percentage of those kids that were admitted have multiple acceptances…what percentage of kids who really, really wanted to go to Duke are sitting on that waitlist because of kids that aren’t going to attend Duke. I’ve changed my mind during the past three years. I now believe that the system is broke. There was actually a kid posting here on CC claiming to have applied to 30 colleges…unbelievable. Granted, we’re talking about a small percentage of kids and a small number of colleges but limiting the common app usage to 10 schools would take care of much of the nonsense.</p>

118

<p>re Post #107. JHS is right about the date having been moved back, but the Ivy Group’s decisions re waiting list have to be made by July 1. If you aren’t off the waiting list by then, you’re never getting in. See this for statement of rules:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/admission/pdfs/0708_ivy.pdf[/url]”>http://www.princeton.edu/admission/pdfs/0708_ivy.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Relevant language is at the end of part VI.</p>

119

<p>Re Post 109, JHS:</p>

<p>I took a look at Vanderbilt’s CDS for the last three years.</p>

<p>2007-2008: 1510 waitlisted/719 accepted a place on list/3 offered admission off the list</p>

<p>2008-2009: 3109 waitlisted/1390 accepted a place on list/202 offered admission</p>

<p>2009-2010: 4,036 waitlisted/1770 accepted a place on list/117 offered admission</p>

<p>I thought Duke was unprofessional to maintain such a large waitlist. Either I can apologize to Duke fans, or say the same about Vanderbilt. I’d rather do the former, but I feel obliged to do the latter, unless someone can convince me Vanderbilt must have a list 10X larger than the ultimate number of admits off that list.</p>

<p>Faline is correct, of course, that Vanderbilt is adapting to a great increase in the number of applications, and because of its 2-yr old freshman Residential Housing approach (the Commons project) the number of freshmen is strictly limited. No doubt the guessing game is a tough one. It still seems to me that the huge waitlists are all about <em>them</em> and their convenience, and a lot of Vanderbilt-loving students are left in the lurch. </p>

<p>Mostly I’m worried that the son of a good friend is not going to get off that Vandy waitlist! And he really, really wants to go there.</p>

120

<p>On the other hand, D applied last year to 12 schools - rejected at 2, WL at 3, 2 were safeties (both financial and academic) that were not her top choices, in at one match school that offered no aid, so that was out, in at one that offered merit money, but fit wasn’t there, and was left with two serious choices. Six years previous, S applied to 8 - had two rejects, 2 WL and 4 accepts. With the number of WL being offered, kids must apply to more schools. It’s a chicken and egg situation, but until something changes (and I don’t know what, when you factor in financial considerations that vary so much with American colleges) the power is in the hands of the schools and I think it’s wrong for a student to limit their applications. Of course, we all have limits, and to me 30 is excessive. I used to think 15 too many. Now I’m not so sure. It’s different if a student has an early acceptance they’re happy with - they can stop there or throw in one or two apps just to see. I’m for anything I think gives students more control/power over the situation, and right now I think multiple apps is the only thing a student can control.</p>