3rd call to admissions after Commitment Day:
Unfortunately, the lady said that they will start reviewing waitlist applications this week but there is no guarantee that they will even touch the waitlist. The decisions will most likely be coming though on a rolling basis in June. I asked about if deferrals were included in the class and the amount of deferrals but she said that they don’t have the information currently and she also mentioned that they are still waiting for some regular decision choices. In addition I asked the question of “does this mean that the class is already pretty full?” and her exact words were “I can’t give an official answer to this but that could be the case”.
I personally think that refusal rates won’t go down much if not increase for domestic students because the COVID situation is barely a problem in the US and plus it’s harder to get into college this year so if a person is admitted from an Ivy League, their chances of refusal is low. They might refuse if they got into several but then the balance will again be set because there will be people who reject other Ivy schools for Penn so in this case, the refusal rate for Penn shouldn’t decrease much because it is one of the popular ivies.
However the refusal rate for international students might still be above average since visas are hard to get right now and a lot of US embassies are still closed.
Well regardless, our chances of being admitted off the waitlist were already slim at best and I’d take whatever they’re saying with a grain of salt. The lady’s response to your question was most likely her standard response and she probably doesn’t want to give you a false sense of hope. At this point, there isn’t anything else you can do because the decision is out of your hands, and stressing about it is going to do more harm than good. Be cautiously optimistic but also get excited for the institution that you have committed to! Let’s get some positive energy here haha
I personally believe the refusal number will go down for Ivies, but up for the T-20 to T-40.
My school counselor called her admissions contact two weeks ago. AO said CAS was super super competitive this year and to tell me, “it is such an achievement just to be put on the waitlist this year,” blah blah.
And if this is any kind of indicator, Amazon is almost sold out of officially licensed Penn sweatshirts. LOL!
Hey can you explain the sweatshirt thing, I don’t quite get it.
Is there any news on Wharton? Is it true that Wharton is the most competitive school at Penn? I’ve read a lot of posts and it seems that Wharton’s waitlist barely moves, I mean it is one of the best business schools.
And…Based on the published original admit number for Fall 2021 of 3202, if Penn got the normal 23% refusal of original offers, they still have some wiggle room of about 65 admits over the class size–built in padding.
Just to cover up for my negativity today (sorry for sounding so depressed).
I noticed that the there are much more views and replies for the penn waitlist thread last year, does this mean that there are less waitlisted applicant this year and thus meaning less competition? (I know this sounds super vague but it’s the only thing that sounds positive to me right now).
I also talked to an admission officer for international students, and at some point she said “if we utilize the waiting list, we will typically do this beginning in mid may through early June”. So she mentioned that not using it could be an option , but don’t give up, we never know how it can unfold!
Last year at this time we were in the middle of an unprecedented pandemic. Schools closing, cities closing, states closing. Nobody knew what to do so people spent so much time online to make up for the loss of in-person connection. I think that’s why so many people were on the thread last year. Also… it was a stressful time with so much uncertainty. I think it helped for people to have the chats to get them through it all.
Now we’re like used to it. And with all the hoopla over the “most competitive year ever” in college admissions, I think most of us are just Over It. I know I am. Today is like the first time I’ve posted anything in weeks.
I was mentally and emotionally spent after announcement day.
Sorry I meant to say that domestic refusal rates wont increase much if it does not decrease for ivies, my wording was confusing. I was trying to say that less people are likely to refuse this year because COVID isn’t a big problem this year with the vaccines and because it’s harder to get into top colleges this year. But I still think that refusal rates for international students will still be higher from previous years since visas are a problem.
I’ve really been struggling with the notion that people are less likely to refuse this year and maybe I’m just making myself feel better but…
Even though Penn increased its financial aid budget a couple of years ago, they still need to make money to run. COVID hit people’s finances and businesses hard. My mom and I have talked about this a bunch and we just assumed not as many people would find paying for elite schools feasible last year or this year coming up. So if the refusal percentage is less than normal, we are guessing:
Dreamy applicants haven’t been realistic yet about the costs and may even get in a bind making it work or staying committed–maybe they just thought, “I’m accepting this offer and I’ll try to figure out how to make it work before I have to pay the bills in the fall.”
OR
Out of the increased numbers of applicants, maybe not only were there lots more qualified applicants, but maybe even more who were willing and able to accept a low financial aid offer.
BTW…One of the best ways to get off a Waitlist is to withdraw the request for financial aid, but you gotta be able to deliver when the bill comes. Maybe there are a lot of admits who can do that this year, but I’m surprised by that.
Call me crazy, but I’m waiting to see people who accepted and said, “we’ll try to figure out how to make the $ work,” will bail out when it gets closer to school or we’ll see some massive financial crisis in 4 years when people graduate and have like $300,000 of student loans they can’t pay. I know the Ivies have the ability to “call an alum to get it done,” for paying for an admit who can’t pay, but there’s only so many of those. I’m probably wrong and don’t understand the finance part of all of this too well.
I can’t help it though, but think there’s this underlying fantasy escapism thing–escaping from the COVID nightmare-- going on in the background that’s making people shoot for the stars because they need something so bad to be amazing after so much sucked last year, and that is gonna explode in the next couple of months or maybe even a year or 4.
Need blind only during Early and Regular Admissions.
But Need Blind means financial need won’t keep them from accepting you. It doesn’t mean they’ll pay more than demonstrated financial need.
I haven’t gotten a full Financial Aid offer yet. My family makes too much to qualify for full tuition help or even significant help, but not enough to make it easy to pay for tuition. Like the offers I’ve gotten from T-40’s are for 20% discounts. That means the other 80% I gotta figure out how to pay with earnings and scholarships. And it will be hard.
So a school may admit you, but they don’t have to give you a free ride.
For the Waitlist however… it’s NOT need blind. The blinders get removed. If they need more full-pay people in a year, that’s who they are gonna admit from the waitlist.
But that’s what I was saying above. There may be many who get an admit offer, but they don’t get a good financial aid package. It may be a really sucky financial aid package. They have to decide to accept the offer and get loans, stretch the family, get scholarships. They may decide the “dream” is too expensive. I’m thinking there’s a lot of “this is way too expensive, but I’m gonna take my chances” happening.
One of my friends got in rd and still hasn’t declined the offer. They sent him an email giving him an extension until the 6th, so that could also explain some things with the wl.
That’s weird because I called the other day about a missing financial aid doc and they told how to submit and was like so you don’t have to wait when you’re accepted and I asked about need blind and she said they were need blind so I thought that means waitlist too.
But if it’s not need blind for waitlist I’m not sure why they even waitlisted me because I have no connections not a legacy nor can I pay for it (my family income qualifies me basically for full ride, even if not full ride it’s quite obvious that I can only pay for about 10% of tuition the most).