Does anyone know if Penn State did this (24-hr turnaround decisions) in previous years? So crazy…
I wish it was 1 week less!!
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This gives me hope that finally I can relax when S24 graduates. I will have an heart attack if I have to go through this stress once more.
S21 got something today for University of the Pacific. It was 24 hours but something similar. They’re 45 min from our house so I get the targeting but some of the other places, I had not even heard of them. They’re so last min. University KY said their deadline was 4/1
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Be careful what you wish for!! This is my fourth and last kid and by far my easiest most relaxed kid. Two years ago my kids knew in December where they were going and we were done with the college process but boy it was a stressful year up until then. I remember saying how easy it was going to be with this kid since he’s my last and easiest. Then bam, covid hit and you know the rest. Now it looks like we won’t have a clue until mid-April what’s going on as he has some schools to still hear from in RD, a few waitlists and a couple deferrals. What a rollercoaster. My saving grace is he’s not acting stressed, he’s still pretty chill, going about his business and just takes one day at a time. But instead of being the easiest this has turned out to be the hardest. Can’t make any plans and I may very well be running around in August to take kids to 3 different states to college one by one.
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My husband is starting to get nervous now too. S keeping busy.
Selingo just tweeted This article about out of control waitlists. If their waitlists are crazy long, they should tell the invited kids that IMHO. I guess on the upside it’s mildly encouraging that S is not from a feeder high school they want to avoid offending, is full pay, and is not legacy. Still odds are pretty slim I suppose. My rational self knows this, and yet I’m like “so you’re saying there is a chance”. 
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A little over a year ago I would have agreed with the article linked to that tweet, which is 3 years old, however, I think many of us can agree that after the Covid debacle and the number of schools that had to go deep into their waitlists, maybe they aren’t so out of control. I like how someone yesterday, can’t remember who, said that a waitlist is like a soft rejection. It does feel much better to be waitlisted than out right rejected, but with some of these schools you still have a shot. A LOCI and updated information, since a lot could have happened since one applied in November (or earlier or even later).
I agree it’s a slim chance, but again, last year some schools utilized a much larger % of their waitlists than they ever anticipated. I also think a lot of kids go off waitlists so while 6,000 may be offered spots, and maybe 4500 may take one, many technically don’t really stay on it, but they also don’t really move themselves off. I think they just want to see if they would have gotten in and schools know that not everyone would take themselves off the waitlist so they need those high numbers. A nice number to know is how many are offered admission and then don’t wind up accepting.
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This year is different for sure but less uncertain than last spring. Still if a school was already taking a ton of WL before Covid, this year they would just pad that. And @ T25 maybe T50, many admitted kids will accept and WLs would trade up so do they really need thousands? At the least, they should post their numbers as a curtesy to help you decide if you want to accept the WL spot and temper expectations.
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I read somewhere to think of the waitlist not as a list but as a pool. There’s no order. The schools go back into the pool when they realize they need more kids in certain majors or from certain parts of the country, etc. The pool being larger this year likely only matters for each student depending on what sort of buckets they fall into. If a school needs more music kids, those kids are all in a bucket to chose from within the WL pool. Maybe full pay helps. I don’t know. I wish there was some actual data on that.
I do wonder what pushes a student actually into the original accepted pool instead of being waitlisted. We all keep hearing that demonstrated interest can be important. I hope we will see articles written when this is all over about how any given app was analyzed and how it was different this year.
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In the book by Duke admission officer (not recalling the name right now) she talks how Duke had 3 waiting lists. Only those in the first waiting list had any chance of hearing an acceptance. Second and third waiting lists were all about giving a consolation prize – for legacy kids who weren’t qualified but you wanted to give them an impression that they were seriously considered. Or for sending a message to a school from which you never admit that they are being considered.
“The sad part is that a waitlisted applicant had no way of knowing which list they were on.
Another reason for having such a large wait-list is that every applicant falls in a box in a 3d grid. You can consider geographical area, major of interest, and racial group+gender as three dimensions. If the school did not get, say, as many women from engineering they will like and not as many acceptances from mid-west, certain applicants will be likely to be pulled and not others.”
Interesting way to lol at it, a block grid. There is an old thread about the article I posted. Kids got WL at 6-8 schools that year.
I am not block quoting properly.
While I agree that it would help more to know how many in your spot on the grid / bucket, it still would help to know how conservative they were with initial admissions and padding the WL.
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@usma90, huge congratulations to your son! We went to Scotland in 2019 and absolutely loved it. My Dis considering doing study abroad there eventually (St Andrews or maybe Edinburgh). We didn’t actually see St Andrews, as we spent most of the time in the NW highlands, but I would love to explore all corners of the country. My D’s school (William & Mary) has a strong relationship with St. Andrews…even offers a joint program where students spend two years on each campus and receive diplomas from both schoolS but my D wasn’t quite ready to do that. Have heard that St Andrews has many international students from across the globe so it should be an amazing experience for your son in many ways 
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I think everyone just needs to assume if they are on the waitlist they should not have any expectations of being offered admission and if they get in then they can be pleasantly surprised. We are not expecting anything of the 2 waitlists. They may be a game changer later on, but definitely not counting on anything and I guess to me it doesn’t matter if there’s 100 or 10,000 on it. Unlikely event either way. Kids need to be realistic and set their sites on the school that they pay a deposit to and commit and not have any expectations of getting off a waitlist. If it happens great, if not, that’s the way it is. Also, there’s no harm for any kid to accept a spot from a waitlist as you don’t have to pay for it and it doesn’t mean anything. If you get contacted you can always decline. Unless of course, it comes down to realizing there is no way you would attend or if affordability is an issue, etc.
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You’re right, you’re right, I know you’re right. 
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Haha, I don’t know about that. I wish all our kids get in off the waitlists, but I’m a realist. My daughter keeps telling me about her friends that were on so many lists and which ones they got in off and who they knew that got in from lists and it was crazy, so it does happen. This was 2 years ago. But when they have thousands of apps how do they decide? What about a kid that has nothing new to add? Or, schools that want nothing? It’s a challenge!! If I had an anxious senior I would lose my mind.
These big WLs are awful, and the schools should be embarrassed. Enrollment management trumps decency.
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I don’t fault the schools. They only have so much space. How do they know which kids will enroll? I’m not thrilled with getting WL decisions but I also don’t want D somewhere next year that is super over-enrolled and tripling up kids and having over crowded classes. The only other enrollment tool schools have is ED and some use that more than others to get a large chunk of the class. I’d rather they take fewer in ED and use WL more.
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Some schools are waitlisting 25% of the applicants. That’s not fair to the applicants.
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But then it’s up to the student to say nope, moving on
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@AlwaysMoving are they publishing their 2021 #s?
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I am sure things will work out well for your son and you. I agree that we don’t know how things will be in future. Will this covid ever go away or will schools ever be normal are million dollar questions.
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