<p>This Boston Globe article certainly sums up the feeling:</p>
<p>Well this phenomenon has our guidance department open mouthed and dumbfounded.</p>
<p>More kids are applying to more colleges. It's a form of yield protection.</p>
<p>Why do you think so many supplements are requiring essays or including "Optional" essays? Simple, it's to gauge interest.</p>
<p>I'm not terribly surprised that the wait list is receiving high utilization this year.</p>
<p>I haven't been waitlisted yet, but I have 6 more RD decisions to go, and I would be willing to bet at least one will be a waitlist.</p>
<p>Coopjust: One will be a waitlist....?</p>
<p>In our house, we have 4 left and I'm thinking ALL of them will be waitlists (with one already in the bag!)....Knowing my d, she may decline all of them and go with the large scholarship at amazing program FTW....Not 1st choice, but she is soooo done with this process....</p>
<p>It's interesting that it's anxious on both sides. Reminds me of a middle-school dance.</p>
<p>I've already been waitlisted at 3 schools, with 3 decisions to go. Not a very good feeling...</p>
<p>But thankfully, I have some acceptances under my belt just in case i get some more bad news ><</p>
<p>I believe this year will certainly be known as the Year of the Waitlist.</p>
<p>Seriously. Hopefully next year will be better, but with trends showing the number of applicants to still grow and then peak in 2009, who knows.</p>
<p>I've been waitlisted at four, and expect to get waitlisted at pretty much the rest too, if not rejected (what's left are reach schools, essentially). Luckily I do have a few acceptances under my belt as well, so I'm not in a shabby position.</p>
<p>Wheee! Maybe I can set some sort of record :D</p>
<p>I'm in 4 schools EA and 3 RD, 1 EA deferral, so 6 RD schools to go. So I'm in 7 schools and waiting on 6 more. At a minimum, I expect at least one of those 6 schools will be a waitlsit.</p>
<p>Coopjust, I think you are the student referenced in the article. You applied to 13 schools? Wow. Couldn't decide? Hedging your bets? </p>
<p>My DH and I were talking about this same subject just the other day. When we applied to colleges (before the invention of the wheel), we picked two or maybe three, and that was it. We didn't have "reaches" - we just picked schools we liked that we thought we could afford. No stress. I feel bad for kids now. Yikes, it is a business just in applying.</p>
<p>I would like to personally congratulate every person who gets into all 15 colleges they applied to. </p>
<p>Thanks for creating this big mess.</p>
<p>EDIT: Posted too early, actual post to be put in in a minute.</p>
<p>No, I am not the student in the article :) But I had a big decision. I had visited over thirty colleges in person thanks to an older brother going on a college search 2 yrs ago and then my own now. I picked the schools I wanted, a couple safties, a couple good matches, and a bunch of highly selective schools. I like all of them, and now I am trying to decide where I want to go (conditional on acceptance for some). I was hedging my bets.</p>
<p>The fact that people have to realize is the fact that the schools that are pending- they are all reaches for me. If I were lucky enough to get into every one, I would go from state to state playing the lottery in each before it wore off.</p>
<p>Yield protection is accounted for. There will be crazy people who apply to a lot of schools. In the end, app fees will probably be raised, more optional and required essays will appear to discourage this level of applying, and as the baby boomers kids leave high school, the applicant pool should get less competitive and everything will balance out.</p>
<p>In the end, I don't think I am "to blame" for "creating this mess". People here are not typical of average college admissions. Out of all the people I know, I applied to the most schools. Most applied from 3-7 schools. So I'm not average.</p>
<p>one waitlist, no rejections so far. it just sucks that the waitlist was at my top school, washu.</p>
<p>I applied to 14 colleges. But most were not schools that will be wait-listing people. I applied to two CSU's, Fresno and Long Beach. Three UC's that I knew I would get into Davis, Santa Barbara, San Diego. Two reach UC's, UCLA and Berkeley. One match OOS, Uni of Michigan. And then 6 reach schools; two Ivies, Pomona, Williams, Stanford, and Uni of Chicago. It is a competitive game these days.</p>
<p>Applied to four got into one got waitlisted at another.</p>
<p>College's have the right to/should place students on the waitlist. Why accept an applicant who they are fairly certain is using the school as a back-up? If I was an admission's counselor, I would do the exact same thing. I want students who absolutely WANT to be in the incoming class, not students who wouldn't mind being in the incoming class, or even just want an acceptance letter to hang on their wall rather than attend.
If you are waitlisted to your first choice college, then I am sorry for you. It is your job now to do anything you possibly could to get off the waitlist and gain entrance. Colleges expect students to do this.</p>
<p>Well, I was waitlisted at BC, so I'm part of the club now. I really lost my desire to go to BC after being deferred, so I can't say I'm really all that disappointed.</p>
<p>3 acceptances, 1 waitlist, still havent heard from one school.</p>
<p>rodney we are so in the same place right now.</p>
<p>Fen..I applied to one college, got in and attended. Now I did switch later on but it just did not occur to me to "hedge".</p>
<p>Our whole family is sick of this process. I have learned a lot and it will not be done this way again. d applied to a few safe school and a few match and 3 reaches. turns out that it was a huge waste of money and time. all we needed to do was find one that she would consider that would give a decision before jan.1. if we had done that we would not have bothered with at least 3 of the other schools. the reaches were not just a reach for getting in but the true test was "do you really want to go there, spend that money and be that far way" and after the whole process, it was no to two of the three. So we used a new formula this year, one match, three match to reach. NO true out of the possibility reaches. Why bother. If you put the test to it, if you know you wont, go don't waste the time. (for us reach also means is it really worth the money).</p>
<p>Third time around it will be 3 schools. One ed for the accepted prior to jan. 1, one that s wants to go to but does not answer until after jan 1, and one that is a low reach. NO MORE schools that accept few oos. No more schools that drag the decision out until Jan. 15. I we had know about one deicsion from one school that makes you jump thro hoops and wait until mid jan., we would never have applied to 2 of the 4. The schools have the advantage and they know if and they use it.</p>
<p>This process has turned such a wonderful experience into an unpleasant experience. I for one say shame on the colleges. It is just not necessary.</p>
<p>top choice waitlisted, but got into 6 others. Still waiting on 2. I don't really get the whole waitlisting thing. If I'm a borderline candidate, why can't they just reject me instead of giving me an ounce of hope and then crushing it 3 months later? Anyways...I just think it is a bit ridiculous, even though I mostly understand the whole uncertainty of the % of enrollment for colleges. Oh well!</p>