<p>Does anyone know how the waitlist system works at boarding schools, do you get a reply before making a deposit at another school, how many people are waitlisted,</p>
<p>how many are accepted from waitlist in a typical year?</p>
<p>oo oo someone answer this one! :D</p>
<p>I do not know how many get waitlisted every year but a number do. Generally, people begin to move off of wait lists depending on how many of the accepted sign the contract and send in their money. So, sometimes you will not know until a deposit is due at another school. I have heard of kids sending in their deposit to one and ultimately going to another school when the waitlists began to move. I also heard that you can speak to a school and tell them you're hoping to get off the waitlist somewhere else and ask them if they'll refund your deposit if you do get into your preferred choice.</p>
<p>Waitlists are very tough. You do not get to go to all of the re-visit days to get that other look-see at a school. And, I don't know of anyone who gets off a waitlist AND gets FA. So if you need FA don't hang on a wait list unless you know they'll give you FA if ultimately accepted.
If you do get waitlisted and decide to go to another school, let the wait list school know right away. It might help someone else to move up a little.</p>
<p>It's like with colleges, different schools handle differently. Some waitlist practically they don't accept and others have small wait lists. Some years some schools don't go to the lists at all.</p>
<p>This is a very good thread and will be important to some in a few weeks. </p>
<p>Obviously schools will be accepting more students then they expect to enroll. </p>
<p>Since boarding school applicants seem to apply to a large number of schools
(3-7 seen on this board) there will certainly be some waiting list movement as students submit deposits to their first choice schools, setting up for a very interesting (if not nervous) month of March. </p>
<p>Exeter for example .... rcvd 1241 "Prep" applications in 2005. Admitted 24% (or) 298 ... and ended with a class of 267. 21 Students went somewhere else. Of course Exeter is the extreme .. and less competitive schools will have a much lower matriculation rate and acceptance rates in tie 30-40%
range. </p>
<p>I hope that students will notify second choice schools immediately, but the reality is that they will probably drag decisions out .. making the end of March a time of turmoil for WL applicants.</p>
<p>Schoolsearcher, are you saying Exeter didn't go to the waiting list?</p>
<p>"Exeter for example .... rcvd 1241 "Prep" applications in 2005. Admitted 24% (or) 298 ... and ended with a class of 267. 21 Students went somewhere else. Of course Exeter is the extreme .. and less competitive schools will have a much lower matriculation rate and acceptance rates in tie 30-40% range. "</p>
<p>How is that even possible? That's just amazing. Were there that few students who applied to both Andover and Exeter? (My S only applied to PEA, but I had the impression that that was unusual.) Or, if there was substantial overlap, did the two schools just take different kids without much overlap in terms of who they admitted? Or is PEA just that much more popular than PA?</p>
<p>Those numbers -- which I'm not suggesting aren't legit -- are still quite preposterous (in a mind-boggling way).</p>
<p>EDIT: Even if 298 - 267 = 31 (not 21) students declining, that's totally radical.</p>
<p>Couldn't be correct.</p>
<p>EDIT: Even if 298 - 267 = 31 (not 21) students declining, that's totally radical.</p>
<p>maybe 298 were offered admissions, something like 200 accepted their spots
, then they took some off the wait list making it 267 ..</p>
<p>Last year Exeter received over 2200 applications (across all grades), a record high, and had a record high yield at 69%. 344 new students (again, all grades) entered the school in September (see Lion's Eye archive article 5/23/06 on their website).</p>
<p>From a recent school paper article, this year saw an even larger number of applicants.</p>
<p>Re: overlap, at spring re-visits last year, the standard line in presentations at Exeter, Andover and St. Paul's was that 60% of the kids present faced an especially difficult decision as they had been accepted at all 3 schools.</p>
<p>Anecdotally, I know of a number of students waitlisted at the above schools as well as Deerfield and Lawrenceville last year and though they remained on the lists, none got in.</p>
<p>Anecdotally again, I am aware of one child who was accepted off the waitlist at St. Paul's in 2005.</p>
<p>Assuming that 344 new students is the yield, then a 69% yield means 499 students were sent acceptance letters. Just so I don't pull a muscle, let's make that 500...which for 2,200 (you said "over 2,200") applications makes the acceptance rate 23% -- or less, depending on the number of applications there were in excess of 2,200 (and, more disconcertingly, depending on my math and the inferences I've drawn).</p>
<p>I've got another question about acceptance rates. Just a curiosity. My son paid the application fee and filed a fact sheet or preliminary application at a number of schools early on. After tours and interviews he decided not to bother completing a couple of those. I assume that it's still an application. Right? In other words, in the case of his decision not to apply to Andover...he actually already had done so. Right?</p>
<p>No, I don't believe schools (or at least the top schools) play that game. When they refer to applications, they mean just that -- the fully completed whole shebang -- people to whom they send acceptance, waitlist or rejection letters. </p>
<p>On the Andover website (facts about Andover section) they even disclose this, listing numbers for both preliminary and completed applications.</p>
<p>I guess I'm kind of lucky in a way--if I get waitlisted, I won't even have to think about it, because I need financial aid.</p>
<p>I think they don't count apps that are not completed. I did the same thing your son did at 2 schools and they called to make sure I wasn't planning to complete the process.</p>
<p>this is harsh, but probably acurate.Wait list at AESD with the large amount of expected applicants this year will likely mean you will not get in.Staying on the list could prolong the frustration well into the summer.Not for the faint of heart. Life is too short</p>
<p>What we DON'T know is whether there are more applicants or more applications. (Okay, there are both...but each additional application, doesn't mean one additional fanny to find a seat for.)</p>
<p>The point here is that a 20% increase in applications can mean ZERO growth in applicants if the average number of schools applied to increases from 5 to 6.</p>
<p>If the schools admit the same number of applicants as last year, then yield rates will probably plummet. And that bodes well for wait listed candidates.</p>
<p>Of course if a school has a good handle on how much their application pool increase is a function of an increase in the average number of applications submitted per candidate (data that a school can get for the current year from its financial aid pool where they see all the schools the PFS was sent to, if not from other sources), then they'll make accurate adjustments.</p>
<p>I don't think it's absurd to think that last year's record setting number of applications helped drive this year's applicant pool to find more schools to apply to. I think that's a more predictable reaction than thinking that a more highly competitive pool has brought more bodies to the process. It's probably a combination of many factors...but don't be surprised if a large number of the extra applications this year come from people who don't represent an increase in bodies.</p>
<p>If I was running an Admission Office, I'd be sweating bullets. Do I think there are more people applying to fewer schools or could there be less people applying to more schools? There's a lot riding on how accurately I divine what's happening this year. And that means, for those departments that guess wrong, you might have a good shot from the wait list...or, then again, not a prayer.</p>
<p>All of this makes me wonder, how much information sharing do the Admission Offices engage in regarding applicant pools. I can see how cooperative relationships could greatly reduce the guesswork involved.</p>
<p>Don't know about all of them, but the few we know in CT often share. They also call a colleague at another school if they have a good candidate that would be a better match at the other school.</p>
<p>"If I was running an Admission Office, I'd be sweating bullets."
they always do...someone in the office used to joke about it..they have the second most stressful job in the schooll...the first is the college advisors...since their results is immediate and obvious...and then it's the admissions office...their jobs depend on the yield</p>
<p>I'm just happy I won't have to deal with all of this "If I'm waitlisted, should I make my deposit at another school, or...?" I only applied to three schools, of which I'm certain I can only possibly get waitlisted or accepted to one of the schools. Not much room to worry. :)</p>
<p>students that are waitlisted are also "ranked". so when an accepted appliacant says they dont wanna go to that school they go to the waitlist in a specific order. they usu. do 25th. 50th, and 75th percentile. so if ur accepted to one but waitlisted at another u should call to see what percentile your in for the waitlisted school.</p>