<p>Hi, dear parents, I am a newbie here. My question is about how the waitlist works. My current understanding is this -
Say a school plans to admit a class of 80 students. The school will send out 100 acceptance letters, if the yield is estimated around 80%, instead of just 80 letters. If someone is waitlisted by this school, this means the student will have a shot only if there are 21 students or more accepted by the student decide not to enroll. That is why waitlist only has a low chance to convert into a real enrollment spot? </p>
<p>Thanks for any clarification on this.</p>
<p>Rollcall, that is my understanding of how the waitlist works. There has been a lot of discussion about how to improve the chances of getting off a waitlist, but no one has confirmed that any of the methods work. I, too, am a newbie to the boarding school scene but I’ve been involved in college admissions for several years. In that venue a waitlist is often a courtesy extended to legacy big-donor families to keep the money flowing. I’d be interested in hearing whether that’s also true in the boarding school context.</p>
<p>Yes, unfortunately, one admitted student declining to enroll does not translate to one student taken off the waitlist until the school reaches under-enrollment. So, in the OP’s example, there is no movement off the WL until the 21st admitted student declines which is why the WL odds are so low. But, it DOES happen as many happy families have attested here, it’s just important to be realistic. As ThacherParent has advised on another thread, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE notify schools as soon as possible if/when you are certain you will not attend. Be sensitive to families who have nothing by WLs in hand.</p>
<p>OTOH, in the face of WL odds, if you have an acceptance, love the school that loved you enough to send that letter and let your WLs go.</p>
<p>Thanks, PrepMom and ChoatieMom. My friend’s kid got waitlisted by 8 schools. So yes, it’s very important that accepted students notify schools as soon as possible as ChoatieMom pointed out. </p>
<p>Hi @rollcall! Welcome to CC. I was waitlisted at 8 schools as well, good luck to your friend’s kid!</p>
<p>Hi, stargirl3, thanks. Did you get off the wait list at any of these schools? </p>
<p>@stargirl3 I’m crossing my fingers that you get good news </p>
<p>@Rollcall, if you search for “Waitlist” on this site, you should pull up many threads on the topic. </p>
<p>Your supposition is basically true. Schools try to be fully enrolled, so they don’t aim to leave beds open. However, there are nuances.</p>
<p>First, parents sometimes assume the waitlist is “ranked;” that is, if the school in your example enrolls 79 of their admitted students, they’ll turn to the student on the top of the list. That may be true, at some schools, but many schools don’t rank their lists. If your child is on a waitlist, it’s a good question to ask. “Is the waitlist ranked?”</p>
<p>Many schools don’t rank their waitlists, or have, maybe (from the outside), categories of students. The most obvious is male or female. They can’t replace a male boarder with a female boarder, because the dorms are single-sex. </p>
<p>Then there are the different talents and skills children bring with them. Assume a baseball pitcher who’s also a math prodigy decides not to accept the school’s offer. The admissions office might replace that admitted student with another baseball pitcher from the pool. Or they might take another math prodigy. Or they might take a child whom everyone loved, but who didn’t fit into any defined slot. From the outside, we can’t predict, and it’s useless to try. It must depend in part on the overall makeup of the students who accept the school’s offer. They might end up with many students interested in Spanish, but few interested in community service. (And remember, a fair number of students placed on waitlists will commit to other schools between March 10th and April 10th.)</p>
<p>In the past I have urged families fortunate enough to have acceptances in hand to treat a waitlist as a rejection. Love the school that loves your child. If a chance of admission is 20% before March 10th, it’s much less likely for a student to be admitted from a waitlist.</p>
<p>Thanks, Periwinkle, very informative. </p>