USNWR 2009: Looking at the Data XXIII (The Wait List)

College Search & Selection
1

<p>The publication of the 2009 USNWR College Rankings provides an opportunity to compare schools based on a wide variety of data points. In this and in threads to follow, I urge the reader to think less about the absolute rankings and more about the nature and value-added of the data point being discussed. </p>

<h1>of students admitted off of the Wait List , National University</h1>

<p>1356 , Penn State
605 , U Illinois
471 , Northwestern
332 , U Washington
279 , Cornell
252 , Duke
226 , U North Carolina
181 , Notre Dame
159 , U Virginia
113 , Emory
105 , Brandeis
100 , Boston Coll
82 , Carnegie Mellon
73 , Brown
72 , Lehigh
62 , W&M
50 , Yale
47 , Princeton
46 , Johns Hopkins
45 , Rensselaer
45 , Georgetown
45 , Columbia
37 , U Penn
30 , Caltech
22 , Tulane
20 , MIT
12 , NYU
8 , Rice
3 , Vanderbilt
3 , U Chicago
3 , Georgia Tech
0 , U Rochester
0 , U Michigan
0 , Stanford
0 , Dartmouth
0 , Case Western</p>

<p>na , Harvard
na , Yeshiva
na , Wash U
na , Wake Forest
na , USC
na , UCSD
na , UCLA
na , UC Santa Barbara
na , UC Irvine
na , UC Davis
na , UC Berkeley
na , U Wisconsin
na , U Texas
na , U Florida
na , Tufts</p>

<h1>of students admitted off of the Wait List , LAC</h1>

<p>97 , Wesleyan
67 , Williams
45 , Colby
44 , Colgate
42 , Swarthmore
33 , Macalester
31 , W&L
25 , Hamilton
20 , Bryn Mawr
18 , Oberlin
16 , Grinnell
13 , Pomona
10 , Haverford
7 , Smith
5 , Carleton
1 , Harvey Mudd
0 , Amherst
0 , Wellesley
0 , Middlebury
0 , Claremont McK
0 , Vassar</p>

<p>na , Bowdoin
na , Davidson
na , US Military Acad
na , US Naval Acad
na , Bates</p>

2

<p>Hawkette: Is this for class entering 2008 or 2007?</p>

3

<p>Class entering 2007.</p>

4

<p>Just out of curiosity, what percentage of Penn St.'s entering freshman class was waitlisted?</p>

5

<p>Penn State Admissions Data</p>

<h1>of applicants: 39,551</h1>

<p>% of applicants accepted: 51
% of applicants attending: 32</p>

<h1>accepting a place on wait list: 1,704</h1>

<p>% admitted from wait list: 80</p>

6

<p>Wisconsin admits about 50% of their "postponed" applicants.</p>

<p>Does anyone know the statistics of WashU?</p>

7

<p>Why is the raw number appropriate for this data versus percentages?</p>

8

<p>I don't understand what the numbers represent. Are these the number of students whom received an acceptance after being placed on a waitlist, or are these actual matriculations from the waitlist? In the case of Northwestern University it may be actual matriculations from the waitlist since the overall admit rate rose from about 24% to slightly less than 27% and Northwestern received about 25,000 applications for admission. Thus, less than 750 students were offered a spot off the waitlist & 471 accepted, if I understand this data.
If I understand, it is tough to believe the data for Vanderbilt, Chicago & Georgia Tech because that means that I know all of the students listed for these three universities. Seems as if different schools are reporting different data.
Can someone clarify the data's meaning for me? Did some schools report percentages while others reported numbers?</p>

9

<p>% of entering class coming from the Wait List , # of students , National University</p>

<p>24% , 471 , Northwestern
21% , 1356 , Penn State
15% , 252 , Duke
15% , 105 , Brandeis
13% , 30 , Caltech
9% , 279 , Cornell
9% , 113 , Emory
9% , 181 , Notre Dame
9% , 605 , U Illinois
6% , 82 , Carnegie Mellon
6% , 226 , U North Carolina
6% , 72 , Lehigh
6% , 332 , U Washington
5% , 73 , Brown
5% , 159 , U Virginia
5% , 62 , W&M
4% , 47 , Princeton
4% , 50 , Yale
4% , 46 , Johns Hopkins
4% , 100 , Boston Coll
3% , 45 , Columbia
3% , 45 , Georgetown
3% , 45 , Rensselaer
2% , 20 , MIT
2% , 37 , U Penn
2% , 22 , Tulane
1% , 8 , Rice
0% , 0 , Stanford
0% , 3 , U Chicago
0% , 0 , Dartmouth
0% , 3 , Vanderbilt
0% , 0 , U Michigan
0% , 12 , NYU
0% , 3 , Georgia Tech
0% , 0 , U Rochester
0% , 0 , Case Western</p>

<p>na , na , Harvard
na , na , Wash U
na , na , UC Berkeley
na , na , UCLA
na , na , USC
na , na , Tufts
na , na , Wake Forest
na , na , UCSD
na , na , U Wisconsin
na , na , UC Davis
na , na , UC Irvine
na , na , UC Santa Barbara
na , na , U Texas
na , na , U Florida
na , na , Yeshiva</p>

<p>% of entering class coming from the Wait List , # of students , LAC</p>

<p>13% , 97 , Wesleyan
12% , 67 , Williams
12% , 42 , Swarthmore
10% , 45 , Colby
7% , 31 , W&L
7% , 33 , Macalester
6% , 44 , Colgate
6% , 20 , Bryn Mawr
5% , 25 , Hamilton
4% , 16 , Grinnell
3% , 13 , Pomona
3% , 10 , Haverford
2% , 18 , Oberlin
1% , 5 , Carleton
1% , 1 , Harvey Mudd
1% , 7 , Smith
0% , 0 , Amherst
0% , 0 , Wellesley
0% , 0 , Middlebury
0% , 0 , Claremont McK
0% , 0 , Vassar</p>

<p>na , na , Bowdoin
na , na , Davidson
na , na , US Military Acad
na , na , US Naval Acad
na , na , Bates</p>

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<p>Hawkette: Did you construct the second table showing percentages from the first table showing numbers? Or did both tables originate from USNews? Also, does the first table show admitted & matriculated from the waiting list?
This list is interesting in the case of Northwestern University which uses an "admit or deny" Early Decision (ED) process and several highly qualified over 1500/1600 SAT scorers were rejected ED by Northwestern.
Anyone know Northwestern's ED admit rate?</p>

11

<p>I'm not at all sure what these numbers are supposed to tell us, though I have seen reports that some schools aggressively use their waitlist as a yield management tool. The idea would be that they waitlist a bunch of people who satisfy their admissions criteria, then negotiate with them one-by-one, offering admission to those who definitely commit to accepting the offer of admission. That way they get a significantly higher yield and a significantly lower admit rate, appearing to be more "selective" than other schools who are admitting similarly qualified candidates through a more conventional process. These schools could also use waitlisting at the margins to manipulate their reported SAT 25th and 75th percentile medians upward---waitlisting a bunch of people just above where they think their 75th percentile median is going to end up, and negotiating individually with the same kind of acceptance-for-commitment deals for those waitlistees who will nudge up their 75th percentile just a little; and similarly at the 25th percentile level. It seems like a lot of hoops to jump through, but some schools will do anything to bump up their US News scores. All things considered, this is probably one of the easiest ways to manipulate a school's US News rankings. </p>

<p>Any confirmation of any of this?</p>

12

<p>coldwind,
All of the data comes directly from the online USNWR, but I created the % number in response to the question posed in # 4. The % numbers are the USNWR-reported number of students admitted via the WL divided by the USNWR-reported number of students who enroll. </p>

<p>BTW, Northwestern's ED admit rate for this past year (not the same year as the data above) was 36.6%. They took in 27% of their class via ED. </p>

<p>bc,
While I don't have the same degree of skepticism that you do about the manipulation of the numbers, I would agree that the possibility exists. For example, given Northwestern's hefty statistical increases in this past USNWR edition and their high numbers of WL enrollees, they would probably serve as good evidence that some of this is going on. </p>

<p>My personal view is that it relates more to the difficulty of enrollment management. When a college gets 10000, 15000, 20000 or more applications, trying to predict who will and will not matriculate in today's college admissions process has to be a daunting task for the college admissions folks. Frankly, I'm surprised at how many colleges make relatively small use of the WL.</p>

13

<p>Which reraises my concern that some schools reported percentages, while others reported numbers. I am almost certain that Georgia Tech, Vanderbilt & Chicago reported something other than actual number of waitlist matriculations, such as percentage of matriculated students from the waitlist. However, I will call each school tomorrow & ask.</p>

<p>Northwestern University uses an admit/deny ED process that denied a lot of very high (over 1500/1600 SAT I) standardized test scorers, several of whom were/are CC posters. If NU wanted to increase selectivity numbers & yield while decreasing admit rate, it could have been easily accomplished. My take is that Northwestern is a backup school for Harvard & Stanford as well as Penn's Wharton School which lowers yield.
I know for certain that Northwestern University only admitted one of six applicants from a very elite New England prep school and most of the remaining five were accepted at at least one Ivy. Not sure of the significance of this other than school match is important and that these students had strong SAT scores.</p>

14

<p>
[quote]
Northwestern University uses an admit/deny ED process...

[/quote]

I'm not aware that NW has an admit/deny only ED process (no ED deferral?). Could you post a link please?</p>

15

<p>No, I don't know a link, but it is admit/deny unless it was changed this year.</p>

<p>Hawkette: Georgia Tech's freshman class is almost 3,000 students & its admit rate is about 65%, so I think that it is unlikely that only three (3) students matriculated from the waitlist; it might be three (3%) percent of 3,000 first year students came from the waitlist.</p>

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<p>bclintonk:</p>

<p>While all of that may be true, the particular year of this data snapshot had admissions offices dealing with a more pressing issue: the first year with no early action from Harvard and Princeton. This had the small colleges (in particular) concerned about their ability to accurately predict yield based on their historic models. Most of them intentionally went conservative on the number of acceptance letters initially mailed in order to get a read on yield in the new environment.</p>

17

<p>Guys...these are 2007 numbers, not 2008.(according to my earlier post)...didn't Harvard and Princeton change their policies for Fall 2008 admission?</p>

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<p>I think we all know or assumed that the numbers are for the 2007 entering class since data collection by USNews has over a year lag time.</p>

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<p>The 2006 numbers show that 156 matriculated students came from the waitlist at Georgia Tech,(versus only 3 for 2007???) Almost 6% of the first year class vs. zero% a year later?
Northwestern went from 220 in 2006 to 471 in 2007?
Chicago went from 13 to 3.
Vanderbilt did not report in 2006, but the number 3 is not accurate for 2007.
Cornell went from 18 to 279.
Notre Dame went from zero (0) in 2006 to 181 in 2007.</p>

20

<p>Cold Wind:</p>

<p>That's the danger of using a one-year sample for data that typically has rather wild year to year variation.</p>