@PhotographerMom Q- what do terms A10, A9, A8, M10 etc mean ? thanks
Relatively new member, our son is wait listed for 2020 PA and PEA - applied for 10th grade boarding.
A10, A9, A8 - April 10, April 9, April 8 - whatever date the school requires accepted applicants to accept their offer.
M10 - March 10 - decision date
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hello everyone, i was waitlisted at lville for 11 grade, what are the chances theyâll take me off the waitlist?
@calm_leo I go to CA with FA. My brother got waitlisted so itâs definitely a tough year.
And also how do i improve my chances of getting off the waitlist?
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Reading posts #2508 and #2509 and #2521 is a great place to start.
My DD was also waitlisted at Concord Academy, also applied for FA.
Forunately, she was accepted elsewhere, with FA.
Thanks @chemmchimney I really appreciate that description and advice. Also @ChoatieMomâs and @PhotographerMom and others for all the advice and encouragement here.
My DD is looking at 3 waitlists (Blair, Choate, PA) and no acceptances. Pretty anti-climactic morning here in California. Canât help but wonder what we couldâve done differently.
We are an FA family, but might take that advice and ask for family help to bridge the gap and call the schools if we can make it work.
Thanks again all and happy waiting/finding your paths.
I have been waitlisted at Brooks School as a boarding 10th grader, and applied for financial aid. Has anyone ever been on Brooks waitlist, or on any boarding school waitlist? How did it turn out, and did you find out April 10th?
Hello,
I was waitlisted at Exeter and Choate, and I was wondering who/when I should send my emails to. Iâve seen posts saying that I should keep in touch (e-mail) my AO, but is my âAOâ my interviewer? I think I was interviewed by a teacher, and it was on campus. I was thinking that I should e-mail them now to let them know that I appreciate the spot in the waitlist and tell one of the schools that theyâre my very first choice? Would that be considered too soon after the admissions decisions came out, or would it leave a good impression?
I am also re-applying from last year, when I was waitlisted at Choate and rejected at Exeter.
Iâve also seen posts encouraging parents to call and get in contact with our AOs as that would help, but my parents donât speak English that well (Iâm from South Korea). Last time, I tried calling the admissions office a couple of times but I doubted it really helped me in any way. Any tips??
Thank you!!!
Parent here at a private school in Princeton, and I can tell you this was theme here today with our 8th graders. Our point person told us it was âextremely competitiveâ this year fwiw (as if itâs not every year) but our kids were waitlisted all over.
Best of luck your daughter seems like a hell of a kid.
I was also rejected from Andover (my actual dream school ever since I attended Andover Summer that year since Iâm already very familiar with the environment), but would there by ANY chance for me to actually be accepted? I know it sounds silly, but I read one story on CC where one student managed to convince the AOs that they would really miss out on a lot if they didnât accept her, and she actually got in! (She wasnât on the waitlist; she was rejected before)
I found the recorded webinar at this link to be helpful. It has info and suggestions for waitlisted students and applying to schools after M10 & A10.
https://ssat.org/apply-to-schools/applying-after-traditional-deadlines
Unfortunately just top ssat scores and grades arenât enough to be accepted. You applied to top schools only and top school reject kids with perfect ssat scores/grades every year. Since none of us have seen your application or the application of others we really cannot tell you why. All we can say is grades and scores arenât enough. Youâre competing against kids with grades and scores who are also outstanding athletes and musicians who had tons of really committed and deep community service. Who wrote sweet, deep, meaningful, moving essays. Kids who showed schools they were really invested in that school. Kids whose siblings attend, or parents attended. It goes on and on. Sorry we canât be more helpful. I can tell you that if your child is thriving where she is she will likely be very successful in the long run and bs wonât be a stumbling block.
From the decision thread this year, I find abnormally high ratio of waits to rejects for certain schools. Virtually everyone has been waitlisted rather than outright rejected. This certainly eases the pain, but I wonder what really is going on. If this is because:
- Too many variables in play / too many uncertainties (for school)
- A gesture to ease pain / a polite way to say no (for candidate)
- Are they really unranked (simply picking one ball blindfolded)?
- If this is a win-win, why would any school not simply put every reject on waitlist and have the option to "refilll" per arising need? (I do not think many rejects would mind keeping a scintilla of hope.)
Any thoughts?
I donât think the distribution of results is so different than it has been in past. When itâs your first time through it and you are personally involved, it feels, wellâŠpersonal! BS do pretty much what a LAC does, in part because itâs not unusual for admissions professionals to work in both in their careers.
Colleges often create WL that are 150-200% bigger than the incoming class. Awful, right? But here is whyâŠ
They donât know how many kids will accept their offer. Just look at the decisions thread. While there are a few kids who have only one acceptance, many have more. So each of those kids will turn down schools. In fact, there may be kids with one offer who turn it down because they canât afford it, family situation changes, it is no longer what they want.
The schools are pretty slick at enrollment management but itâs a moving target. Maybe kids applied to more schools, maybe itâll be harder for foreign students to get to the u.s., maybe economic uncertainty makes more families less likely to pay. In other words , they are pros but they can get it wrong so they prepare for that.
They admit more kids than they want to enroll because they know that some % will say no. They WL a ton of kids ready to fill the holes that are left on A10. It is possible that as they get to that date, they find that boys enrolled at pretty much the expected rate, but they are short girls. So they look at girls on the WL to see what they need. Boys are done! And they see what FA they have left to work with at this point because inevitably, some of the students who said no were offered FA and if more of them declined than was expected, there might be money left.
And at that point, itâs a matter of whether you are the flutist, field hockey player, or math wizard that fills a hole. Tons of girls on the WL will not be. This is why they arenât ranked. And if no FA$ come back into the pool, you need to be FP.
Of course, there may be some soft rejections for legacies or applicants from schools or counselors that the BS wants to encourage, but this isnât a big piece of it.
If you are on a WL, you are indeed qualified to be a member of the class. It will be a matter of luck as to whether you fill a hole. Odds are always against it because of the # on the WL ,(in my example above, half the WL - all the boys â never got a look), but it obviously happens at every school every year for some folks. This is how they fill every bed but make sure nobody is sleeping on the floor.
@gardenstategal Thanks for the very helpful and comprehensive information. Perhaps it was my feeling that there seemed more waits than rejects for this particular year (I imagined the COVID uncertainty may have influenced schools to increase the buffer), but even from the applicantsâ perspective, a waitlist may feel less harsh, even if it ends up the same (I donât think kids would have false expectations about their chance). This is different from leading on with tea leaves; kids may actually feel much better about themselves being waitlisted than being rejected. As such, I would, if I were a candidate, welcome the policy of having large pool of waits.
Did you apply for financial aid? Sometimes that can be a tipping point.
My daughter is in wait list in Exeter, Andover, Lawrenceville, St. Pauls, Hotchkiss, Groton, and Peddie, she is in a top private day school now, SSAT is 97% overall, report card is also good, almost all Aâs. We totally donât have any idea why this happened. I am feeling there is something wrong in my application. Anyone has idea what could be the reason? And does she really have any chance getting off the wait list? Thanks.
@enpassant2019 , itâs possible that covid-19 did cause them to increase the buffer, but most of these schools have been dealing with a level of visa uncertainty for a couple of years now. In SNL terms âitâs always something!â And I suspect the true impact of covid 19 effect will only become truly apparent in August.
Also remember that many WL students will NOT accept a WL position because they have been accepted to preferable schools. So all these kids who have been offered WL positions will not take them.