UCONN: accepted
Syracuse: accepted
PSU University Park: accepted
UVA: Waitlisted
Boston College: Waitlisted
Boston University: Waitlisted
Northeastern: Rejected
I don’t know if I’m just cursed or what, but I wanted to get all of your opinions on what I should do know. My top choice is BC and it REALLY sucks that I couldn’t get in, so should I retake the ACT and send them my new scores or write the admissions committee a letter? Any and all advice is greatly appreciated!
You can appeal to more of those schools. I would definitely prioritize your choices more though; PSU University Park should not be on your list of appeals since you already accepted to it, as are UConn and Syracuse. Appeals should be prioritized to UVA and Boston College; Boston University has poor aid and prospects as far as appeal goes as are Northeastern until recently.
I’m honestly quite tired of seeing people cry about getting waitlisted/rejected from a couple of schools while they’ve already been accepted to so many other GREAT schools. If you were waitlisted at BU, BC, and UVA, you just weren’t quite qualified enough to warrant an acceptance (yet not unqualified enough to be denied.) Accept your spot and appeal those waitlists if that’s what you want to do. If its meant to be, it will happen. If not, you’re going to have to get over it and start looking at the amazing schools you’ve already been accepted to. You’re not cursed, OP. This is reality.
I think the OP means “how come I was waitlisted at these three schools if I got into these three others?” which no one can answer.
If you want to appeal, appeal to one school and do some research on the average ACT score and other criteria that you might have fallen short of. A letter to the admission committee may or may not help, you could call admissions and ask their advice.
If your top choice is BC you should do the following:
Have your guidance counselor call BC tomorrow to ask for feedback on your application. There may be valuable information from that conversation that you can address to improve your chances of being offered a spot off the waitlist.
Send an email to the admissions officer at BC who is responsible for admissions from your high school, stating that BC is your first choice and that you will immediately enroll if offered a spot in the class. (But you should ONLY do this if it is true. If, for example, you might NOT accept if financial aid is less than expected, for example, then you cannot say you would enroll no matter what.)
Include in the email any NEW and relevant information (for example, if you recently won an award or earned an honor, or if your grades were higher third marking period, etc.) - but only if it's information that is new since you applied.
Address any issues that are raised in the feedback from the guidance counselor, if possible.
If possible, visit BC (even if you've already visited) and sit in on one or two classes. Afterwards, be sure to go to the admissions office and speak to your admissions officer if s/he is available (and if not, ask for someone else - there's always an "officer of the day" to meet with walk-ins). Reiterate in person that BC is your first choice and that you hope to be admitted off the waitlist.
Keep your fingers crossed...last data available shows BC admitted 280 students off a waitlist of more than 3000.
Choose the school you wish to attend from the ones who accepted you and let BC know you wish to remain on their waitlist. Get BC any additional info that might help your case. Take your name off the other wait lists. Good luck.
Honestly, you aren’t the only one. I was waitlisted to 3 of 7 UC’s I applied to. That’s what backup and safety schoolsa re for. I would say the next best thing is to appeal to BC if you really want to get in. there’s no point in retaking your ACT since one test score won’t affect your entire application as a whole. However, if you honestly think it affected it drastically, then I guess you could. Again, there are other alternatives than BC.
You don’t “appeal” a waitlist. Look at it this way - they hold all the cards. Is it really in your best interest to try to explain to them that they’re wrong? Really, if I were on an admissions committee and a waitlisted applicant contacted me to tell me what a bad decision I’d made, his (or her) file would never see the light of day again!
@janjmom’s post is spot on. If one of the waitlist schools is your top choice, you let them know, and tell them that you will definitely attend, if accepted.
Before you think you’re peculiarly afflicted, you should know that there are many kids in your position; perhaps the majority of applicants to top colleges are waitlisted at at least one, if not more, school. My nephew was waitlisted, a few years back, at 4 Ivies, plus Stanford; he’s graduating this spring from a great school that did not waitlist him. He spent way too much time hoping that one of his waitlists would turn around and take him. It’s understandable, but what it does do is get in your way of celebrating the school that wants you, and that you’ll be attending. Let the others go, and focus on your acceptances and their strengths. Go to accepted student day, talk to people who went there. If you say, for example, “I’m going to Syracuse,” you’ll hear congratulations and happy reinforcement from all kinds of people who went there, or who know someone who went there, and loved it. If you say, “I was waitlisted at BC,” you’ll hear a lot of sympathy or stories of people getting off waitlists. Which would you rather hear?
The above posters, who are saying you don’t “appeal” a waitlist decision are absolutely correct.
As already noted…
Send a letter of interest to the school saying you want to remain on the waitlist and are hopeful you will be accepted.
Your school GC might have a relationship with the college. Sometimes, the GC can advocate on your behalf.
Send in NEW, updated accomplishments that were not part of your application...any awards, or updated GPA, or updated SAT/ACT. Don't send them stuff they already have.
And I'm sure the OP knows that there is no need to deal,with the schools,where he or she has already been accepted.
My opinion…I don’t know your stats. It is very possible that you were waitlisted and will never get accepted. Another thing you need to do is look at where your acceptances are…and look at the strengths of those schools. You applied there for a reason. Which one of those acceptances is your top matriculation choice now. That is important.
Melaniesdad, I’m not sure where you are getting your information, but much of it is not fully accurate.
I would suggest not looking and where you didn’t get in, but start looking at where you did get in.
After all, you wouldn’t have applied if you didn’t want to go there, right?
UConn vs. Syracuse vs Penn State. Which is the lowest net cost?
I don’t know whether the OP needs financial assistance, but colleges often have little - if any - to spare once they begin accepting waitlisted students.