<p>and i would say lots of students on the waitlist get in.
this is from petersons secondary school book 2006 edition with the data of 2004....................
1st #- #applied
2nd #-# accepted
3rd#- #enrolled
Hotchkiss 1526 322 182
PA 2131 456 332
Exeter 1987 545 353
Choate 1462 465 276
SPS 972 236 147
Deerfield 1640 389 211</p>
<p>I am not so sure about the ranking within a waitlist. It was described to me as a backup for the type of student admitted. Consider the school selected a student who was helping fill a need in the orchestra and that student goes elsewhere. A position would then go to someone on the waitlist who could also fill that same need.</p>
<p>Waitlist policies vary by school. The only way to know how it works at a particular school is to ask the admissions office.</p>
<p>ell45: I think the number that is missing from your stats is the # of open spaces they are trying to fill. The schools probably have a pretty good handle on their yield from the acceptances (i.e. 50-70%) so they accept more than they could accomodate if all of the students who were accepted chose their school. There are only so many beds in the dorms to fill for each class year. </p>
<p>For example the fact that 389 were accepted, but only 211 enrolled at Deerfield doesn't necessariy mean that Deerfield had to go to the waiting list at all. Maybe there were only 200 bed available and they scrambled to find a spot for the 11 who were over their estimated yield.</p>
<p>true, but i dont have that data....</p>
<p>After March 10, if you're waitlisted you could probably call the admissions office to see how many in your class came off the waitlist last year.</p>
<p>If you're waitlisted, you really need to contact school. My daughter applied to 3 schools last year, one as a boarder and two as a day student. Incredibly, she was waitlisted at all three. The one boarding school, Choate, basically told us her chance of actually being accepted was somewhere between slim and none. My memory is that in the year prior to her applying (two years ago) they took zero students off the wait list.</p>