<p>I am reading that this year top Ivies and equivalently ranked schools are likely to put more applicants on the wait list. Whether this is true or false, I would like to know how this whole wait list thing works.</p>
<p>Do they rank order the wait listed students (unknown to the applicants)? So, if X number of admitted students reject the admission offer, do they take X number of the students from the wait list in the order of desirability ranked a priori as the spots become available gradually from April 1 to May 1? For instance, if you are a number 1 on the wait list, you may learn relatively soon after April 1 that you are now off the wait list and get acceptance, etc. Or, do they have a general pool, and then after May 1, they go through another evaluation/selection process to choose among the wait listed students? </p>
<p>Before they take you off the wait list, do they want to see more data, such as final grades, etc?</p>
<p>Roughly when do they let you now whether you get the acceptance offer from the wait list? But then again, some of those on the wait list who get later accepted may choose NOT to come. In that case there will be yet another round of students of the wait-wait list that may be still accepted, etc.</p>
<p>So, when will you know for sure FINALLY that there is no chance for acceptance?</p>
<p>I know the answer to the last question. The college will let everyone on the wait list know when they are no longer taking students off the wait list. </p>
<p>With yield hard to estimate this year, with the economy as it is, it seems this will be a big year for wait lists.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t it be great if there were an easy answer? Wiser people than I will help answer this, but first of all colleges accept a larger number of students than the actual freshman class size. They base this on statistical models, based on their experience that xx% of accepted students usually attend their school. When they guess this correctly, let’s say they have a class of 1000 and they know that 75% of accepted students usually attend. They increase acceptances by 25%, and hope they’re correct. If they are, plus or minus a couple of students, they might stick where they are, or go to their wait list for a couple of students. If they’re off in either direction, they either risk overcrowding their class or going to the wait list. What I can’t answer is how and in what order colleges take students off their wait list. I have heard–but someone should verify–that gender, region, potential major, ethnicity might be factors in determining who to take off the wait list. That makes sense to me, vs. a general ranking, as in all likelihood waitlisted students are probably pretty similar in caliber. I believe that at the point one is waitlisted, advocating for yourself/having your guidance counselor do it in the form of expressing one’s absolute intention of attending the school if acceptd off the wait list is critical.</p>
<p>This year, with the current economic situation, the wait list may come more into play than it has in the recent past. It is anyone’s guess how this will play out, as families determine their ability to pay tuition with and without aid.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I do not know of any selective college that ranks its waitlist.</p></li>
<li><p>How students come off the waitlist is a big mystery. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>In some cases, students on the waitlist may be informally linked to specific accepted students. For example, perhaps three lacrosse players were admitted out of five supported by the coach, and the remaining two are waitlisted. If one or more of the admitted lacrosse players decides not to enroll, and the college decides to admit students from the waitlist, then one of the two waitlisted lacrosse players has a good chance of getting an offer. Note that the college will not admit students off the waitlist unless admitted students in general fail to enroll in enough numbers; not because this or that specific student declines the offer of admission.</p>
<p>In some cases, a few students on the waitlist may have been the very last students excluded from the original offer of admission. They have strong advocates on the admission staff, and everyone felt bad about not admitting them. They have a good chance of getting an offer from the waitlist. But, of course, a waitlisted student has no idea whether he or she is in this category.</p>
<p>High school counselors with a long relationship of mutual trust with a specific college admissions department sometimes seem to be able to promote specific students for a waitlist offer.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Most of the waitlist offers get made within a few weeks after the final deadline for accepting the original offers on May 1. There may be several waves of waitlist offers through late May and early June. Usually, by the end of June / beginning of July, colleges announce that they are finished with waitlist offers, or they offer a much smaller number of students the option to remain on an extended waitlist (which can remain open until a week or so AFTER freshmen are expected to show up for college – but that’s very rare).</p></li>
<li><p>For all practical purposes, being waitlisted is being rejected, except some students are usually accepted off the waitlist. The odds are awful, though. Selective universities often have waitlists that would be sufficient to admit a whole additional class, and only 1-3%, if any, will get offers. If you are waitlisted, don’t count on getting an offer. It’s time to move on.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>While I might have agreed with JHS last year about moving on if waitlisted, I wouldn’t this year. </p>
<p>This is one weird year for sure. We can all agree on that I think. But with some pretty top schools increasing their class sizes due to financial concerns, you can bet their waitlists are gonna grow. If Amherst, for example is going to admit 20 more students to it’s class, there is a good chance those 20 are going to have to be full pay students (otherwise, where is the revenue they seek?). Amherst, however, is a need-blind, full need school and do not consider financial need in admission decisions. This DOES NOT apply to waitlists.</p>
<p>So… if you are hoping/needing a great deal of aid and are waitlisted, than yes I almost certainly encourage you to move on to a school where you will be successful (and not broke). On the other hand, if you are not seeking financial aid there is a pretty good chance you can come off the waiting list **IF YOUR SCORES AND THE REST OF YOUR APPLICATION ARE IN THE BALLPARK.[\B] I cannot emphasize that enough (although using bolded capital letters is pretty emphasized). I just don’t want to hear the whining when it comes to students who do get in off the waitlist. They would not have even made it to the waitlist had their application been under serious consideration. I look at it somewhat like second round deferral.</p>
<p>And I hope people will consider that no one can determine their origin of birth. Whether that means you’re a first generation, or URM or father is a captain of industry – they all bring something to the table. And IF it happens that second round deferral is about money, maybe first round ED is about URM or some other diversity initiative. All very worthy candidates and certainly not admitted ONLY because of that one factor.</p>
<p>Agree, this will be the year for full pay students on the waitlists. And it’s likely more than ever will come off these lists. There will probably be movement throughout the summer as more come to grips with the fact that they just can’t afford these $50K schools.</p>
<p>If the need blind policy does NOT apply to the wait listed candidates, would it help to tell the school that the wait listed candidate is willing to cancel the financial aid application, though originally the financial aid was requested?</p>
<p>You are all right – I hadn’t thought about this year’s peculiarities. On the other hand, there’s lots of reason to believe that, at the very top of the food chain (the OP asked about the Ivies, after all), there isn’t going to be the same degree of yield uncertainty that there will be with second-20 LACs and the like. And last year, when almost all of the Ivies took substantial numbers off their waitlists, there had been deliberate underadmission in the RD round because of uncertainties about the effect of the end of EA/ED at Harvard and Princeton. I don’t see that happening this year.</p>
<p>My daughter’s year, her counselor got all of her kids off the waitlist.</p>
<p>This is going to be an interesting year. If you should get waitlisted, show interest with your GC (he will be your biggest champion), pay attention to when they open the waitlist (probably the first week of May), let them know you could make a decision fast.</p>
<p>What will usually happen is adcom will call your child (sometimes at school) to see if he/she wants a spot, and sometimes it’s via email. If the answer is yes, then they will send an acceptance packet, if it’s no then they will just move on. It’s best to discuss it as a family before May 1 on your strategy.</p>
<p>I would absolutely withdraw the request for aid if I could afford to. I believe many of the need blind schools don’t say they are need blind when it comes to the waitlist. And no matter what they say, we all know this year’s realty.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t go that far. Maybe include a letter saying that you could find a way to make ends meet, but would be appreciative of any aid they could offer. If you withdraw the FA application, you are guaranteed to get $0. This way, you signal a willingness to be full pay, but if they don’t need you to be full pay, then you may get something.</p>
<p>Good advice – just be warned that we know of a couple of students who were made offers of admission from the waitlist after 4/1 and BEFORE May 1st. Could throw a monkey wrench into the works!</p>
<p>Why would they parse who can pay what at a time when they need folks who can pay in full and donate generously? Hard to believe anyone will make it off the waitlist with a letter talking about making ends meet. </p>
<p>I can tell you at the private school board I sit on, at a school that has been need blind and has met full need, this is a year of looking for patrons.</p>
<p>Honestly, for the folks that have the money and are tempted to withdraw the applications, do they want to risk their kid not having the opportunity over a few thousand dollars?</p>
<p>does any body has an experience of actually getting “wait list” notification from the school?</p>
<p>What does it say? Simply, you are wait listed? Or, does it tell you if there is anything you need to do to stay on the list? At this point, can the candidate add further material such as latest awards, the final grade, etc?</p>
<p>They already know who are potential patrons, and who are not. There is no way to “fake it” by offering to full pay. Now, if you are offering to donate a $1,000,000 for a new wing …, then you wouldn’t have applied for FA in the first place.</p>
<p>After looking for potential patrons, what a school wants is:</p>
<p>1) A kid who will enroll (don’t want to keep going down the wait list); and
2) a kid who can afford it.</p>
<p>If the school can’t offer any more financial aid (all given out), then it is to their best interest to offer to kids who don’t need it. Thus, a letter saying you can make it work without FA may make a difference when they get to your name.</p>
<p>Even if they have aid to give you, they might accept you and not give you aid so they can accept the next kid and give him what they would have given you.</p>
<p>All I can say if it were my kid, and I could afford the school, I wouldn’t want to try to play let’s make a deal and have a conversation about making ends meet. I would just take aid off the table. </p>
<p>More importantly, looking forward, I wouldn’t apply for aid at all next year. They would have to fear that the borderline will hit the up the following year so I’d never let them see my numbers.</p>
<p>But does that work the other way around in this climate? Will a College X look at a candidate and say, yeah, he needs $15-20K of FA the first two years, but he’ll be full pay once the older sibling at College Y graduates?</p>
<p>Be aware that many schools will put legacy kids on the wait list rather than send an out-right denial as a kind of ‘soft rejection.’ So if your kid is legacy and rejected, your chances may be even worse than the other kids, who are being held ‘just in case’ they need that extra lacrosse player.</p>
<p>hyeonjlee-A waitlist letter will be specific in telling you what needs to be done to either accept or decline a position on the waitlist. Waitlist students are also ALWAYS advised to accept a spot at another school, as many students never come off waitlists.</p>
<p>We really need to be a lot more specific in these threads. I have no doubt that some collleges will be “need-aware” in taking students off the waitlist. However, it was asserted above that Amherst College would only take full-pay students off the waitlist. I follow the top LACs pretty closely and don’t have even a shred of hint that this would be the cast at Amherst. To the best of my knowledge, Amherst College is “need-blind” period.</p>