So easily solved with a wait list but yet it continues on…………………………makes you wonder why? Is it the money? Unbelievable bad admissions planning? Why does in continue?
Northeastern was overenrolled over 300 students last year. While they have not announced 2018 enrolment yet a number of students/parents reported here on CC last Spring that they were accepted off the waitlist. So hopefully they hit the target this year.
Amherst yielded about 490 instead of 470. As they have a first year quad all frosh live on, they assigned some triples and gave those students a few hundred AC dollars (credit for cafes, laundry etc). They didn’t go to the waitlist.
This was the last class for the now-retired admissions head, new one was previously admissions director at MIT.
I don’t think it’s that simple. In order to increase reliance on the wait list, the schools would need to lower admission rates. If enough schools do this, then the result will be students applying to even more schools than they are right now since fewer schools would be true safeties. So now the schools have to review more applications, lowering their admission rates even more, resulting in students applying to more schools…
I don’t know what yield is for waitlist offers but in most cases I suspect it’s very low. Many kids will take the bird in the hand and mentally/emotionally write off a waitlist offer even if it’s a school they initially preferred.
I suspect a lot of schools are happy for the extra students and the tuition they bring and are happy to scramble a bit to accommodate them. A huge miss is a problem, for sure, but it’s better for them to have too many than too few students…
Multiple years of over enrollment is an indicator of poor planning and an inability to strike a balance with yield/waitlist/ED. If you can’t figure out how to manage the right size incoming class, how on earth can you mange the school? If you don’t have the funding to build a new dorm and you keep the inflated freshman class, that is a red flag for the financial health of the school IMO.
UT Austin since I know 4 kids there right now and all say their are perks, but it is crazy packed, and they all wonder if it was the best choice. (sophomores now).
External factors can disrupt planning. For example, an economic downturn can shift college demand to lower cost colleges and away from higher cost colleges. Open admission community colleges can be particularly overloaded. Industry ups and downs can cause specific programs to become over or under enrolled faster than instructional resource levels can be changed (consider petroleum engineering programs). Changes in the local rental real estate market can affect student demand for on-campus housing. If other colleges use waitlists more, “summer melt” becomes less predictable.
I worry about this issue for my HS junior son. He would not do well in a shared room, so I am prepared to pay extra for a single. But how will we know that the school can accommodate their enrollment, before he commits? Housing assignments usually come out fairly late in the summer, too late for him to have a good back-up plan.
^^There are a lot of schools he can cross off his list as singles are rare or only for medical reasons. UCLA is almost all triples for freshmen.
It is definitely something you should ask at tours or contact the housing office. If they require a medical note, get that lined up early. Some schools now have suites where each student gets a single but they share bathrooms and a living/kitchen area.
@Mommertons - Unless your child has a medical need for a single room, it’s going to eliminate a ton of schools from the list. You may be better off looking for schools that allow freshman to live off campus so you can get him a studio or 1 bedroom apartment.
@Mommertons – try Vassar.