As a prospective student, I was looking at the RD results thread and could help notice that qualified/overqualified students were getting wait listed while many kids with mediocre stats got acceptances. Does this mean wake puts a large emphasis on demonstrated interests in ECs in comparison? I’m confused and any insight would be helpful (:
It means they are protecting their yield, and admitting kids they think will actually come.
Protecting yield? Maybe. More likely, Wake is looking for fit. Grades and test scores are not the end all and be all of an applicant. Wake’s admissions process is pretty intense (i.e and evaluative interview and allllllll those essays). They are looking for students who are going to commit and contribute and really get something out of their time at Wake.
A lot of those “qualified/overqualified students” may not really want to go to Wake. They may be fishing for an admit. Unfortunately, when some of those students don’t get into their first choice, tier one schools (schools they believe that they deserved to get into darn it!) and they sadly, in their minds, have to “settle” for Wake, it poisons their college experience. Rather than getting busy loving their school and getting involved, they live under the cloud of shoulda-coulda-woulda.
So for those that want to go to Wake, I’d say that demonstrated interest is HUGE. I’m guessing that demonstrated commitment to ECs is important (What are you passionate about? What are you going to bring to the campus?) Wake takes Pro Humanitate pretty seriously.
Agreeing with both of the prior comments, I would surmise that Wake seeks applicants with demonstrated interest in WAKE. If the admissions officers get the feeling that Wake is your safety school, that may hurt your chances. For example, if you don’t bother to set up an interview or even visit campus, you probably aren’t that serious about coming to Wake, and that doesn’t bode well.
And, yes, they do want to learn about your involvement in ECs and community.
Higher education is a business and it is all about yield. Yes, “fit” matters because if a student fits it is more likely that the student will stay and pay tuition for four years. Wake, in particular, admits nearly 40% of their incoming class through binding early decision – that is a 100% yield on nearly half the class. In comparison, in 2015 they only yielded approximately 20% from their regular decision offers…that means that nearly 80% of the kids that they accepted said “no” to Wake (so much for their ability to determine fit from the interview and clever essay questions). Wake then needed to troll the waitlist to fill the remaining 100 class vacancies (about 8% of the incoming class). Many kids love Wake Forest and I am sure that they get a good (but very expensive) education. That being said, I believe that the university’s admission process is random and mostly skewed to benefit the university rather then to truly cull the top qualified students. Scooping up a tremendous portion of your class early decision because these kids have agreed to forgo choice on one of the first big decisions in their young adult life is absurd and largely self-serving.