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<p>Not quite true. Admissions Offices practice Yield Management. They have statistics that tell them:</p>
<p>1) Of the kids that are offered admissions, what % will accept.
2) Of the kids that accept, what % will withdraw before the start of classes.
3) Of the kids that accept and do not withdraw, what % will not matriculate (not show up).
4) Of the kids that show up, what % will drop in the first few weeks of classes.</p>
<p>That’s why some of the larger universities have to house some kids for a week or two in the cafeteria until there is room in the dorms. </p>
<p>If you truly need time to make up your mind, you are taken into account in the numbers. That doesn’t excuse mere indecision. But, if you have a good reason (can we scrape together $30k/yr to send Johnny to Harvard vs. $10k/yr to the State University), you may or may not have taken a spot away from someone on the waitlist. You may just be one of the % they expected to drop.</p>
<p>Schools overestimate yields for the initial decisions (admit fewer kids than they could, assuming a normal year). It is better to have too few kids than too many. My Daughter’s freshmen year had more kids than normal. Their yields were too high, and declined kids that did not accept by the May 1 deadline. No kids were taken off the waitlist.</p>
<p>The only way Declines (or withdrawls) from students will affect waitlist is if they get more declines than they expected. If you are offered admissions off the waitlist way past the May 1 deadline, the Admissions Office could just as easily be seeing yield numbers in line with prior years, but didn’t want to risk overfilling the freshmen class until closer to the start of classes. Even if one of their stats is low (lower acceptance rate), they may wait a little while to see if that is not offset by another stat (lower withdrawl rate).</p>