<p>Here's an idea for a selective college to try: don't reject anybody. Anybody who isn't admitted (and who meets the basic objective requirements for admission) gets placed on an unranked waiting list. Students can choose whether to stay on the waiting list.</p>
<p>What would be the disadvantages of this for the college? For the students?</p>
<p>Like a community college?</p>
<p>I figured that’s what’s happening now.</p>
<p>A lot of the schools already have huge waiting lists–what would they lose by putting everybody on it?</p>
<p>Well, they’d lose a bit of prestige, I’m sure. But I like the idea!</p>
<p>The ultimate ego boost for parents and GCs.</p>
<p>Well, what would be the advantage to either?</p>
<p>From the college’s point of view, it would probably have to establish and to fund some sort of Kafkaesque Office of the Waiting List, to deal with thousands and thousands of neurotic applicants who do not have closure without having them overwhelm the real admissions staff.</p>
<p>But that’s assuming what you propose is really any different from what happens today, where it seems that at lots of colleges no particular effort is made to cut down the waiting list to a size where it would make waiting seem worthwhile. My impression is that if your application had enough support to have had a chance of being accepted, you are on the waiting list most places. Of course, that’s a much higher standard than “meets the basic objective requirements for admission”, but I don’t think many elite colleges are going to go public with what their “basic objective requirements” are, or even if they have any. I also don’t think much energy goes into deciding, at the margin, who gets waitlisted and who rejected. If they have to think about it, the default is probably waitlist.</p>
<p>If, however, the practice would be a meaningful change from what happens today, it would also mean that the college would have to do extra work before admitting anyone off the waitlist, because there would be a much wider gap between the best applicants on the waitlist and the worst.</p>
<p>From the student’s standpoint, it gives false hope, prevents closure and engagement with the colleges that actually accepted them, generally prolongs the agony. It also doesn’t communicate any meaningful information about your application’s strengths or weaknesses.</p>
<p>What JHS said. </p>
<p>The down side for applicants is that people might put their lives on hold for the waiting list. Is the expected result that you put a deposit down at school X (your best “admit”) and then remain on as many wait lists as possible, hoping to hear better news? At what point would you call it a day and say, “Well, gotta start selecting my courses for X?” </p>
<p>Would the college admissions offices be bombarded with questions/requests for status updates? </p>
<p>I believe it’s best to know that an option is closed to you, and to get on with the rest of your plans. In the “school X” situation, above, holding out hope would create an ambivalence for school X that could easily detract from the student’s freshman year experience. I’ve heard on the CC boards that there are schools that do courtesy “legacy” waitlisting–I’m not sure it’s such a courtesy.</p>
<p>I would like to see everything condense to one application, transcripts, test scores, letters. This would get digested by a big clearing house and out would come “bids” from colleges to the students. I’d like to see this all turned on its head. There are really strong applicants who have to apply individually lots of places, play the ED/REA game, etc. It is expensive and time consuming. The truth is that the strong students should be in the driver seat in all of this, let the strong students throw down their qualifications and let the bidding begin. </p>
<p>Let selective schools accept however many of the students appeal to them. Then it should be a timing thing. All the answers from colleges should go out at the same time. After that, first come first serve, ie, the first 1,000 kids who say yes to Chicago, for example, get in. The students would need to have a pretty good idea going in what their preference list in order is.</p>
<p>If all the schools did this, would anybody really put much hope in the waiting list?</p>
<p>I am not a fan of waiting lists.</p>
<p>I would like to see the applicants more in the driver seat and the schools competing for the applicants. The schools could accept whoever qualifies and then it would be up to the students to quickly commit and take a spot. No waiting list. That’s my model. I don’t really see how what Hunt is describing would make anyone less miserable.</p>
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<p>Fwiw, applicants are really in the driver seat, safe and except for the final admission decisions. Applicants compose their list of applications from several thousand potential schools. The schools have no other recourse than “begging” for applications from as broad a population as possible. </p>
<p>And, then, even after admissions are offered, the complete decision rests with the applicants. Ever wondered about the number of “safety” schools that accept students who have zero intention to attend? Not much of a driver seat, IMHO!</p>
<p>The reality is that except for the rare world of highly selective schools, students do apply to few schools and usually are accepted at their first or second choice. (See Nacac surveys for evidence.) Take a look at the acceptance rates at the 25-50 USNews ranked schools, and mark where the 50 percent admission rate starts. Other numbers? Take a look at the University of California system unique applicants. There you have the system that is widely recognized as the best public university system in the world, and notice that 3 out each 4 applicants gets a seat in one of the UC schools. Even the almighty Cal admits more than 1 out of 4 in its freshman class, all the while opening the gates to JUCO and CC transfer admissions as wide as possible. </p>
<p>The image of college admission is really only funnel-like for a small number of schools and relatively small number of students. For most, the process is mostly a matter of being able to afford college as opposed to be admitted at one. And again, that “choice” is entirely the student’s.</p>
<p>For a little perspective, let’s take a look at the most recent class of applicants at Stanford.</p>
<p>Total men who applied:17,817
Total women who applied:16,531
Total men who were admitted: 1,278
Total women who were admitted: 1,159</p>
<p>Number of qualified applicants offered a place on waiting list: 1078
Number of wait-listed students who accepted a place on the list: 784
Number of wait-listed students admitted: 13</p>
<p>Imagine what a list of about 32,000 hopeful candidates would mean. A major admin matter in Palo Alto, but a huge problem for the schools that are waiting for the chips to fall in a domino chain.</p>
<p>I know independent secondary schools that waitlist students instead of rejecting/denying them with the idea that it protects the kids’ self esteem. What it ultimately does it just string out a process since some of the waitlisted kids refuse to commit to their options just in case the WL opens. While rejections sting for sure, at least can put the school behind you and move on.</p>
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<p>No opinion on the question, but props to JHS for most evocative phrase 2011.</p>
<p>(we are reaching award season, after all.)</p>
<p>Agree with JHS, especially as to point 2. There are already kids on multiple waiting lists, hoping to get off at least one out of 3, 4 or more. Now imagine that there are literally hundreds of thousands of kids like this. How does this benefit anyone?!!!</p>
<p>I wish they had something like this on Black Friday in 1982 - everybody gets a Cabbage Patch doll. It doesn’t matter how many there are in the store, nobody goes away from the store empty-handed (unless youare on the waiting list).</p>
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It makes for a good acronym, too. “I work for the KOWL”.</p>
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<p>I completely agree. S’s school went from a policy of either accepting ED’ers or rejecting them, to a policy of potentially waitlisting some of them to be reconsidered in RD. I think that’s horrible. I think it’s better to rip the band-aid off at once, so to speak. If you don’t love me, you don’t love me, and then let’s just all move on.</p>
<p>But ED is for those who like me the best, not like/dislike. Perhaps they should eliminate the ED program, not reject totally those who thought they were a sure admit but need to compete with others.</p>
<p>Medical school seniors go through a matching process for residencies but this is not practical for undergraduate students although it may be worthwhile for medical schools if costs were all equal. There are far too many variables to consider when choosing an undergrad college. Students also don’t really know what they want academically or otherwise. Medical students pick one specialty and rank 4 or 5 programs they have interviewed at. HS students most likely won’t graduate from college with the major they initially chose, if any.</p>