It appears lot more wait lists in all the reach schools. I guess it’s because of increased number of applications.
“It appears lot more wait lists in all the reach schools. I guess it’s because of increased number of applications.”
Nope. Not even close.
All the top 20-ish schools use a variety of tools to keep their yield up and their acceptance rate down. Which is good for ranking purposes. Early Decision is the biggest/best hammer on that. Schools like Duke, NW, Vandy, Penn these days fill about half their seats through ED. Really affects the numbers since the yield on ED offers is near 100%.
But the waitlist (which Vandy uses a lot) can be used for this purpose too. Since (like ED) it significantly decreases the number of acceptances needed to fill the enrolled class.
It is just how the game is right now.
@northwesty So are you saying that if Vanderbilt waitlists a student, the chances are higher that if eventually offered a spot, they will accept it? Thus, improving the yield?
All the waitlist comments…Makes me wonder if top schools are waitlisting more students because of concern about international student attendance. There have been some articles stating that international apps are down this year with the concern of trump’s policies. If apps are down, visa policies shifting, and uncertainty about the climate, are schools putting more kids on waitlist thinking they will not get as many international students. Also, let’s not forget that while the number of total applications may be increased, the actual number of us students entering college continues to go down from the high of 2009. I think yield this year is tricky for all top schools, and waitlisting could be a well needed protection for universities this year.
When should admission packets arrive?
“@northwesty So are you saying that if Vanderbilt waitlists a student, the chances are higher that if eventually offered a spot, they will accept it? Thus, improving the yield?”
Look up the CDS for Vandy or any similar school.
Vandy reports an admit rate of 10.7%. But that calculation does not include anything that happens with the waitlist.
Vandy doesn’t report how many waitlist offers it made but does disclose that it enrolled 71 kids off the waitlist. I believe those 71 offers are excluded from the 10.7% calculation. Same goes for the waitlist offers that were made by Vandy but declined.
If Vandy didn’t use the waitlist, it would have to put out more RD admissions. If you assume yield on RD offers is 25%, then Vandy would have to admit 284 more kids to fill those 71 seats. Which would move Vandy’s admit rate from 10.7% to 11.6%.
Lots of schools do these gyrations. But the biggest tool for this is ED.
@northwesty Makes perfect sense. Even if waitlisted students decline an offer from Vandy, that is not calculated into admissions statistics. And fewer offers to fill their class. Very smart on their end if in fact the offers off of the waitlist do not affect their admission %.
So what explains the year over year increases in numbers of college applications at all of the top schools? Answer has to be more foreign student applications. Competition increasing because of weighting for First Gen and minority students as well. Our top public high school this year has several qualified applicants waitlisted at UVA (instate). UVA EA applications increased 24% over last year. That’s a big jump.
Hey guys, I got waitlisted and I accepted my spot, but how do I check how much financial aid I am going to receive?
mayankko, there should be a tab on the webpage where you can check various things. Financial aid should be one of them.
@mayankko - the net price calculator is probably your best bet at this point, because I am not sure if the college calculates fin aid for WL people. But you can always email and ask them.
Ok cool. Thnx @MedSciBud . Also I already tried what you said @KrazyKing5461 . One more thing: Under the financial aid tab two more documents showed up (The tax returms for both my father and I). There is a note that says that they must be submitted for accepted students, so if im in WL should I submit them or should I wait to get my acceptance letter?
I was waitlisted. If I accept a place on the waitlist, is it binding or is there some fee attached?
“So what explains the year over year increases in numbers of college applications at all of the top schools? Answer has to be more foreign student applications. Competition increasing because of weighting for First Gen and minority students as well. Our top public high school this year has several qualified applicants waitlisted at UVA (instate). UVA EA applications increased 24% over last year. That’s a big jump.”
FYI, total apps at UVA were up 13% this year. So half the 24% EA app increase reflects more kids deciding to apply early rather than more apps overall.
But more apps comes from lots of things in addition to foreign students – Common App, the internet, USNWR rankings, etc. all drive apps. My personal theory is that it reflects more apps per kid because admits rates keep going down every year.
If all the selective schools used fewer devices (like ED and waitlist) to drive their admit rates down and yield up, what would happen? Admit rates would go up, and there’s a good chance that each kid would feel the need to do fewer apps when shooting at 25% admit rate schools than when shooting at 10% admit rate schools. Which will be 8% admit rate schools next year…
From experience I know that the only way to get off the waitlist at Vandy is to make it in clear to admissions in no uncertain terms that you will accept if moved off the waitlist. I am sure that the waitlist letter is the same this year as in prior years where it states that demonstrated interest is now the dominant factor in admission decisions off the waitlist. IMO, it is a crummy system and reflects poorly on the school (as it does for others school who do it, too)
You need to look at the out of state portion of the increases over last year. More significant than in state. And that still doesn’t give an explanation for the high number of qualified, non-Minority , 2nd Gen applicants denied or waitlisted at many schools this year, not just UVA
The Vanderbilt waitlist data used to be available. This link to a 2016 The Washington Post article, “Top colleges put thousands in waitlist limbo and some wont accept any,” shows in 2014 Vanderbilt waitlisted 6,018 students, 4,536 students accepted a spot on the waitlist and 210 students were eventually accepted. Since the article ran, Vanderbilt has removed waitlist data from their Common Data Set for all prior years.
How do I mute a thread?
Congratulations to everyone and best of luck. I don’t think it’s a surprise (or conspiracy) that Vanderbilt and other universities want to protect their admissions statistics. Yeah, it’s a university of “higher learning” but it’s also big business and very competitive to attract students and continually improve the school, bring in money etc. etc. I’m sure Admissions Departments can tell if an applicant has an interest in actually attending or if he/she is just using the school as a back up or maybe even collect admits like some sort of trophy to brag to friends. I mean who applies to 20+ schools. Anyway, just a reminder that this is a business and the US News rankings are important even with the flaws in the ranking system.
Here is a link to an article that mentions the drop in international students this year. Might mean more use of the waitlist for many universities. http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/survey-finds-foreign-students-aren-t-applying-american-colleges-n738411