<p>Front page article in today's New York Times about kids who send cookies and parents who offer money and even free surgeries in hopes of getting their kids off the wait list got my attention. Just curious if any CC'ers want to share things they may have done that worked.</p>
<p>I was waiting to see which CCer would fess up to offering the free rotator cuff surgery.</p>
<p><a href=“On the Waiting List, Some College Applicants Try a Little Dazzle - The New York Times”>On the Waiting List, Some College Applicants Try a Little Dazzle - The New York Times;
<p>Fun article.</p>
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<p>This part was funny: “Another applicant eagerly informed Ann Fleming Brown, the director of admissions at Union College, in Schenectady, N.Y., that the college was her first choice or had become that when her true first choice, Bowdoin, rejected her. It is just one of the many ways, Ms. Brown and her colleagues at other schools say, that students on the waiting list have shot themselves in the foot in recent years.”</p>
<p>It’s both sad and funny. I recall in year’s past small colleges putting an equal number of kids on the wait list as the freshman class can hold - hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. And there will always be the kids that will cling to the hope that it will be them chosen if a college even ends of using a waitlist.</p>
<p>Contrary to what the article said, though, is the fact that for some colleges money will talk. It doesn’t have to be the promise of a new building or surgery, but if you inform them you can pay full freight and don’t require finaid, they will put you at the top of the list.</p>
<p>Is that true??</p>
<p>Money will always talk. By the time colleges go to their WL, most likely they no longer have additional money for WL kids.</p>
<p>I would bet money on that (no pun intended)…by the time the colleges need to dip into the waitlist I would guess that most are not looking for high need kids. Why would they? I would think the strongest bargaining chip for a kid on the waitlist who just can’t give it up is to call and say “I will come if asked. I don’t need any financial aid.”</p>
<p>Absolutely. Brandeis, which is a need blind institution for ED and RD, admits that students without financial need get top priority when they consider who to admit off of the waitlist. Very very few schools are totally need blind during the entire process.</p>
<p>It’s a fish story. So-called “need-blind” schools get virtually the same percentage of students receiving aid year after year after year, unless the President calls for a change in policy, in which case more needy (or fewer needy) students magically appear. The chances of this actually happening in a need-blind process, at so many schools over so many years, are virtually nil.</p>
<p>Good lord. How shameless of the kids/parents and manipulative of the colleges. Unfortunately, until people realize there is not a very small and finite list of “acceptable” colleges, it will only get worse.</p>
<p>I am one of those shameless parents who emailed the school my kid was WL on to let them know that we would be fully supportive of our kid if she should get off the WL. My kid had great 4 years at the school she was WL on and I would do it all over again.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t it go without saying that any parent would be supportive of his/her child who had made the effort to apply to a college but didn’t get in (yet)? And do you think if your daughter hadn’t gotten off the wait list she would not have had four great years at her next best choice? Really just trying to understand.</p>
<p>My kid was WL at few schools. I only emailed one school to let them know my kid would matriculate if accepted and we would be happy to pay full fare. She did get off another higher ranked WL school, which she turned down and I was also not as supportive. I don’t know if my kid would have been just as happy at another school. How could I?</p>
<p>Well, it sounds as though you were honest about it–which is not the case with a number of the people reported in the article. Glad it worked out.</p>
<p>What can make a big difference is if the GC writes and says a WL student would go to that school, if that GC is one known to Admissions as trustworthy in these matters. I know a few schools that have great WL results. My son, (not at one of those schools) was told, along with others in the same WL plight at a certain college, was that if he truly would go there, the head of the school was going to personally meet with admissions to discuss those on the that list This was some years ago. </p>
<p>Of course, the same number or % of fin aid kids, or close to it are accepted each year at school and programs. That is the amount budgeted. Mini, I was on a committee for scholarships for such kids, and believe me, we had to dig pretty danged deep through the need stack to fill them. I would say 3/4 of the kids would not even have been accepted to a program if they were full pay. That they were considered challanged because of family need was what made them even eligible. So, yes, that is the case. And we always used up every bit of money there. The reason for the static %s is not what you think many times, though, yes, it could be reasons in some cases There are not kids lined up that are needy that would have been accepted except for money in those schools that are need blind in admissions. Getting enough to fill the budget without taking their circumstances into consideration is an issue. An exception to this are the international students. </p>
<p>My sons’ independent school takes a number of kids through programs like PREP for PREP, and those kids are often on full rides. They get into schools with test scores that most of the other students would not gain entry with such numbers. They tend to be at the bottom of the class academically too. Yes, I have seen the numbers. I agree fully with the boost they get, but I want it to be clear, that a boost is there. It’s not like there are all of these top stats, star resume kids not getting spots at the top colleges due to need. Not at all.</p>
<p>As for the wait list, there are a number of colleges that are need blind for admissions that do exclude waitlists in that category, and having need can put you at disadvantage in clearing that list at such schools. When the money is gone, only full pays will be admitted. But, I can tell you, that I’ve been surprised that way too, in that some kids with need did clear waitlists from need aware schools But as a rule, by the time it comes to waitlist, the adcoms do not want to full around with contingencies and those ready to commit with no strings attached are candidates they tend to want.</p>
<p>“What can make a big difference is if the GC writes and says a WL student would go to that school, if that GC is one known to Admissions as trustworthy in these matters.”</p>
<p>Having a GC who is “known to an admissions officer” is synonymous with being born on third base. That’s the province of very well to do public high schools, or affluent private or boarding schools. As if adcoms can possibly “know” more than a relative handful of GCs at the 30.000 hs out there.</p>
<p>A GC known to a school can make a difference. But if the school accepts the student from the WL and the student ends up declining the spot, that puts egg on the face of the GC. So this may be done sparingly.</p>
<p>I still don’t get that, as someone whose GC, though a perfectly nice woman, just wasn’t involved. If my kids had accepted a WL spot and then declined – the GC wouldn’t have been involved in any regard in the first place in any of it, so how could she have gotten egg on her face for a decision that she had nothing to do with? It’s like saying if I spend my money unwisely, that’s egg on the face of the bank teller who handed me the money.</p>