<p>To those who get in via waitlist this will be a blessing; for those other waitlisters, it will feel like a second rejection.</p>
<p>
[quote]
In an e-mail message sent on Thursday to colleagues at dozens of other institutions and passed on to The New York Times, William Fitzsimmons, the Harvard College dean of admissions, said, Harvard will admit somewhere in the range of 150-175 from the waiting list, possibly more depending on late May 1 returns and other waiting list activity.</p>
<p>In answer to an e-mail message on Thursday afternoon asking about those figures, however, a Harvard spokesman said that the numbers were not accurate and that the university would not release any numbers or make any statement until next week.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I love how Harvard is backpaddling when suddently realized how big WL admitted number is. Harvard threw everyone in a loop by forgoing EA and ended up being the one with the highest WL admitted number. Harvard = newly-annoited Tufts?</p>
<p>I would assume that colleges across all levels are having a tough time with accept / admit yields with the increased number of students in the 2008 class and the increased number of applications per students.</p>
<p>It will be interesting to see how the colleges adapt going forward.</p>
<p>"I love how Harvard is backpaddling when suddently realized how big WL admitted number is"....I have a strong feeling they will not be the only ones backpeddling when this all pans out.....</p>
<p>What I find interesting, but can't figure out a theory for......It seems like the schools going to their waitlists are the "high-flying, hot" schools; especially those so-called "new Ivy's" as well as the "old Ivy's"......the great schools one tier down are, for the most part, done and some are even over-enrolled.....Anyone think it's because the so-called "top schools" (but not Ivy) believed that if they only admitted "ivy-material" kids they could improve their profiles???...Unfortunately, they didn't account for the fact that their yields still didn't change.....</p>
<p>The colleges going to their waiting lists this year mostly were simply very sparing in making offers of admission initially, to avoid having overenrolled freshman classes. It will be interesting to see what waiting list domino effects there are at different colleges.</p>
<p>According to the Crimson, H's 78% yield was unchanged:</p>
<p>The</a> Harvard Crimson :: News :: College Sees No Change in Admissions Yield</p>
<p>They had projected a 7% drop in yield (due to the elimination of EA) but managed as if they might get a 7% increase--very conservative with respect to guarding against overenrollment.</p>
<p>Interestingly, the number of students on FA increased from 48% to 55%. So it appears that the changes in their FA policies served to exactly counterbalance the decline expected from their changes in admission policies. This strikes me as an effective use of a rather reliable admissions model.</p>
<p>hmmmmm, it appears then, for all the $$$ hoopla of dropping EA ("advantaging the advantaged, yada, yada, yada"), the real finaid % didn't likely change much (as some of us cynics predicted). The net increase could easily be the difference between the old finaid policy (full pay @ $150k), vs new finaid policy which gives a nice discount at @$150.</p>
<p>I'm not sure it's valid to look at WL admissions as sign of failure. WL is a powerful tool for getting your class exactly right, so it's actually pretty sound strategy to plan on using it. That is, you can underadmit and then selectively fill in from the WL. </p>
<p>You can always take students off to correct an underadmit situation. It's much harder to correct when you go the other way and end up having too large a freshman class.</p>
<p>A lot of those books written by admissions people suggest that there's more finagling with wait lists than with regular admissions -- in other words, someone whose guidance counselor at their elite school has a particular relationship with admissions people somewhere is more likely to get off the wait list than mere mortals. I'd be a bit concerned that this announcement will be followed by elite private schools and the like all making phone calls to get THEIR kids off the wait list and to heck with all the regular people out there. . .</p>
<p>^ hmmm... interesting...
anyone have any more info on this phenomenon?</p>
<p>Momzie - If the counselors have waited until now to start lobbying, it's probably too late. As soon as decisions come in April 1, the college counselors mount the campaign for kids who want to pursue a waitlist. My S decided not to pursue any waitlists, and now I rather regret it - we'll miss all the drama!</p>
<p>I agree that those counselors started lobbying long ago.</p>
<p>i don't think it's fair to bash the schools who are taking large numbers off the waitlist, like harvard. the elimination of EA at HP and UVa made predicting yield correctly incredibly hard for many schools, including H, P, and UVa. especially with H already overcrowded and accepting no transfers for the next two years, they can't take the risk of accepting too many kids and being overenrolled once again, so they need to waitlist more kids just to make sure that everyone attending their school will be able to have a dorm room and get into classes. harvard is not and never will be the "new tufts."</p>
<p>[NYT]
Top Colleges Dig Deeper in Wait Lists for Students
By TAMAR LEWIN</p>
<p>In what may be a happy surprise for thousands of high school seniors, Harvard plans to offer admission to 150 to 175 students on its waiting list, and Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania each expect to take 90, creating ripples that will send other highly selective colleges deeper into their waiting lists as well.</p>
<p>“This year has been less predictable than any recent year,” said Eric J. Kaplan, interim dean of admissions at Penn, adding that when one college in the top tier goes deep into its wait list, others are affected. “We all need to fill our classes and replace students who have been taken off wait lists at other institutions. The wait-list activity could extend for a significant time.”</p>
<p>NEVERMIND, I'm retarded. I just saw this same exact post about 5 things down haha. Sorry guys!</p>