wait-listed, desperate for help

Prep School Admissions Prep School Parents
1

<p>I am so sad and luckily, my son is away for school trip and I have time to digest this situation.</p>

<p>He applied to 3 schools(exeter, andover, sps), all of which waitlist him. People say it is the same as denial. However, it is hard to accept it. Are there any slim chance for being off the list? Then do you have any suggestion to improve his chance to get in one of these?</p>

<p>To stay on wait-list, do I need to make a non-refundable deposit?</p>

<p>Does anyone know about any case where the student got accepted after waiting?</p>

<p>Sorry about too many questions. But it is so painful.</p>

2

<p>It depends on the year, if, and what degree, the wait list is used. You can’t get much clue until April what the yield is looking like, and it isn’t until May that money has to be deposited, when the schools have a much better knowledge of whether it will be used.</p>

<p>You do not make a deposit.</p>

<p>You have nothing to lose (except maybe your sanity): the schools may tap the waitlist up until the school opens in September.</p>

3

<p>Unlike colleges, prep schools keep waitlists open until August. This means that there remains lots of opportunity to “refresh” the application with new news. Specifically, this means: new grade reports from school, new accomplishments in sports or academics or honors outside of school, a new recommendation different from those already received, and perhaps taking the SSAT again for better performance. Also, strongly indicate to at least one of the schools that it is your first choice and that you will attend if admitted. Now is not the time to play coy.</p>

4

<p>@wanttobesmart - I understand your pain, we were in the same situation last year with a rejection from Choate and a waitlist from Exeter (the only two schools where DS applied).</p>

<p>This is just my opinion - I know others have a different opinion - but I think it can be counter-productive to hold out hope for coming off a waitlist. It certainly doesn’t hurt anything to stay on the waitlist - people DO come off the waitlist sometimes - but accept the decisions and move on to Plan B. (I think the odds are really stacked against you to come off the waitlist, especially at super-selective schools like the ones where your child is waitlisted. It does happen - but the chances are really, really slim. If it does happen, it’s like winning the lottery - fantastic, but not something to count on!)</p>

<p>We spent weeks, then months, doing everything we could think of to help DS’s chances to move off the waitlist at Exeter. We didn’t give up until we finally got an email from Exeter on August 1st, saying that they would not be offering any more places at the school for the coming year. In hindsight, I think it would have been much healthier to just accept the fact that our child was not admitted, and move on to “Plan B” sooner.</p>

<p>And we did have a Plan B - and the story does have a happy ending this year. (I posted our story on the following thread in hopes it might help someone else this year.)</p>

<p>[The</a> Wait List - College Confidential](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=1300302&referrerid=228550]The”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=1300302&referrerid=228550)</p>

<p>All the best to you and your child as you move on from here.</p>

5

<p>My son applied to both PAA and PEA and was waitlisted by both; however, he was taken off the waitlist a short time afterwards. </p>

<p>Being waitlisted was quite uncomfortable not knowing what to plan for and also dealing with what appears to be a form of rejection. Notwithstanding, I can confirm for 2010 my son was taken off the waitlist as a prep.</p>

<p>Not sure if it made a difference but we did call admissions and let them know of our strong interest in enrolling our son. Wish you the best in getting off the list!</p>

6

<p>Thank you so much for your encouraging experience. May I ask you which school that was and how early it happened?</p>

7

<p>" By agreement, the members of the Ten Schools Admissions Organization will discuss decisions starting March 15. If you have questions, please hold your communications until that date." from the waitlist e-mail.</p>

<p>Does this imply they are going to check who are on waitlist? Then, do I have to choose just one as the first choice and respond to the one?</p>

8

<p>@wanttobesmart - I believe this means that each school will discuss decisions (admits/waitlists/declines) with **you<a href=“not%20with%20each%20other”>/b</a> if you want to contact them starting March 15. </p>

<p>If you truly have a first-choice school, I think it is a good idea to convey that information to them. (“We support our child’s decision that Exover is her first choice school, and if you take her off the waitlist, she will enroll there”).</p>

9

<p>Son enrolled at PEA. I don’t remember how many days it took to get off of the waitlist as my memory isn’t as good as it use to be.</p>

10

<p>March 15th gives stray letters time to arrive, families time to digest information, and for the situation to sink in. It allows for emotional responses to die down before people make the call. And since it’s spring break it gives the staff some time off.</p>

<p>After that, they can try to answer questions about why your child did or did not get placed.</p>

11

<p>Anything can happen, so there is no harm to holding your place on a waiting list. Those are three highly-selective schools, and so you can’t expect many places to open up on the waiting list, but they compete for many of the same exceptional students. I don’t know whether any of them “over-accept,” the way all but the most selective colleges do; I suspect they do not, and so some students are inevitably invited from the waiting list. You would probably have decided on a school had any of them accepted your son, and it’s safe to presume that most accepted students will. In that case, the waiting lists shrink as students who have been accepted elsewhere commit to their schools.
Don’t lose hope, but don’t expect to beat the odds either. If a call comes in the next five months, allow it to be an epiphany, but proceed with life otherwise.</p>

12

<p>cut-n-paste from the Waitlist thread:</p>

<p>Some numbers from the 2011 admissions round:</p>

<p>PA 3186 applicants, 14% admitted, 79% yield rate
PEA 2600 applicants, 19% admitted, 69% yield rate
SPS 1402 applicants, 16% admitted, 68% yield rate</p>

<p>Yield rate refers to the percentage of admitted kids who actually end up enrolling, e.g., PA had a yield rate of 79% last year, which means 21% of the accepted kids decided to go elsewhere.</p>

<p>To get off the WL, the school will have to have over-estimated their yield rate.</p>

<p>Someone posted on another thread that last year no one came off the PA WL. PA under-estimated their yield, then had to scramble to find beds for 10 kids.</p>

13

<p>kellybkk offers lots of excellent advice and I’d like to play off of one specific piece of advice, supersize it (if you will), and see what others think since it will probably meet with mixed reactions and it’s worth getting a variety of perspectives.</p>

<p>I’m referring to this:</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>I agree with that and want to highlight the words “at least” because if you’re willing to give a firm, final commitment to any one of those three wait-list schools and withdraw from the waitlist upon receiving an offer of admission from one of them, I think you can tell all three that they are your first choice and that you will attend if admitted. After all, you don’t have any choice right now as your son sits on three wait-lists. Once any one of the schools offers a seat/bed to your son, you’ll have a choice – between accepting and not accepting. The offer is likely to come over the phone, so I don’t even think that it’s possible to be in a position where you have two or three offers arrive at the same time (unless you have call-waiting and toggle back and forth rapidly).</p>

<p>As long as you withdraw from the other wait-lists as soon as you’re locked in at one of the schools, I think you can honestly and ethically tell each of them that they are your son’s first-choice school if accepted and that, if accepted, your son will enroll at that school. I think some parents get caught up in the idea that it’s still before March 10 and that there are still choices and you can rank them. Right now, your options do not include a boarding school and when your choice does spring to life (upon receiving a call from one of the schools indicating that they’re taking your son off of their wait-list), how can that school not be your first choice – as it will be your only choice?</p>

<p>If, however, your plan is to “hold out” with one or two of the schools to see if your pre-March 10 first choice school pulls through…well, in that case, you should probably just drop off of the other wait-lists because you’ll have to turn them down if your plan is to hold out for one particular school to extend an offer of admission to your son. (If you’re holding out for an accompanying financial aid package of a certain size, that complicates matters but you might as well lay those cards on the table soon so the schools can clarify where you stand as a financial aid applicant on the wait-list.) Absent financial aid considerations, and provided a family is fully committed to boarding school over their present and prospective day school and boarding school options, I think parents who find their children on a wait-list and plan on dropping off all other wait-lists upon receiving an acceptance from one of the wait-list schools ought to tell all of the wait-list schools that they are the first-choice school and that they will matriculate if offered a seat for the fall.</p>

14

<p>As for the odds of getting off of a wait-list, past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Admissions offices are constantly revising their algorithms for predicting yield. In the 2011 college admission cycle, several colleges made it clear in the winter that their algorithms hadn’t worked in such a dynamic economy (meaning their yield substantially exceeded their predictions in the one or two preceding admission cycles) so they were going to intentionally underadmit in March and rely heavily on the wait-list to build up to their desired class size. This included highly competitive colleges – which meant that these colleges were leaving some highly valued applicants wallowing on wait lists while almost certainly holding acceptances in their hands from other excellent colleges. They then had to act fast as seats opened up but in the process it probably resulted in some bleed-off of applicants who would have matriculated if they had received an outright offer of admission. I don’t think an admission office will take this approach lightly or frequently…but it does happen. IIRC, one boarding school took a similar approach last year. But that’s not something I think they’d want to do in consecutive years. The boarding schools most likely to take that approach would be ones that have under-estimated their yield repeatedly or grossly under-estimated it in the prior year. So, the fact that a school was overenrolled and didn’t take any students off of its wait-list could be good news. Or it could be bad news. Unless the admission office has announced its intention to underadmit and rely on the wait-list, either in official admission blogs or in the wait-list letter itself (which is a key means of staving off some of the bleeding if they are taking that approach), I wouldn’t hope for that to happen – but it does happen. The bottom line, though, is that a wait-list mostly means waiting.</p>

15

<p>" I think you can tell all three that they are your first choice and that you will attend if admitted. " – Absolutely not!!
Just as you should have written a first choice letter to one school, if it were your first choice and to maximize your chances, you now need to let ONE school know it’s your first choice. Doing otherwise is unethical and will potentially get you nowhere.</p>

16

<p>D’yerMaker makes a good point @mhmm</p>

<p>There is very little chance that all of these schools will choose the same student even if all three open their waiting lists. And even the odds of an opening are low given the frenzy of applications. You can see from the decisions board that while some students are accepted at multiple schools, many are getting only one or two choices and a lot are waitlisted. </p>

<p>What can be nuanced and still in the spirit is to simply tell each school how much you’d enjoy being a member of the student body and would accept a position if offered. If one comes through and you IMMEDIATELY withdraw from the others there is not conflict. Once you withdraw, no further action will be taken so it doesn’t matter if it was your favorite or not. Schools understand the constraints of deposits, etc. And with tuition payments starting in the summer, it is not with faint of heart that people can just ‘switch’ to a new option.</p>

<p>However - it should be said that hundreds of waitlisted students and parents read this board and don’t post. So expect that is your competition, they are all writing or calling with the same plea and you’ll have to figure out what will make yourself stand out above that fray.</p>

17

<p>I disagree…I think the argument of there really isn’t a choice right now is valid. But to compromise, you can write each of the three schools, tell them of our son’s strong interest and that you will attend if admitted. You don’t have to say first choice and quite frankly as he is on the waitlist, it isn’t your choice, it’s their’s. Then if/when you get a call, you can say terrific! Thank you, we accept. And take your son off the other two waitlists. It is highly unlikely you would get pulled off more than one waitlist anyways. Don’t use words ‘first choice’ and there will be no question about any unethical behavior.</p>

<p>Good luck…I really hope you get that call.</p>

18

<p>“What can be nuanced and still in the spirit is to simply tell each school how much you’d enjoy being a member of the student body and would accept a position if offered. If one comes through and you IMMEDIATELY withdraw from the others there is not conflict” – yes if you say that and nothing else. However if you tell THREE schools that each one is your FIRST CHOICE, then its unethical and an outright lie. You absolutely can’t twist perception here. Further, schools do chat between themselves, so you will shoot yourself in the foot by doing that.
It’s heartbreaking to be on a waitlist. I know from personal experience and feel for everyone who is. However, we should not suggest people do something dishonest, even if the numbers are against them.</p>

19

<p>I think a personal handwritten letter from your child to the AO whom interviewed him cant hurt. The letter should say how excited he is to be on the wait list and that he is so hopeful that a spot will open up. He knows school would be a great fit for him and he is so excited to participate in x program. I did this when I got wait listed at the college of my choice and I think the day they got the letter, I got a turn around acceptance letter. Granted this was a long time ago, but it worked, and I was thrilled. I do think however you need to choose one school and put all eggs in that basket and letter must be handwritten from child not parents.</p>

20

<p>Here are some articles regarding college wait lists. Not sure if it is helpful. </p>

<p>NYTimes
<a href=“Top Colleges Have Bigger Waiting Lists - The New York Times”>Top Colleges Have Bigger Waiting Lists - The New York Times;

<p>Forbes
[In</a> Depth: How To Get Off The Wait List - Send a Letter - Forbes.com](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/24/college-get-off-wait-list-opinions-contributors-wait-list_slide_2.html]In”>In Depth: How To Get Off The Wait List)</p>

<p>Here is some more advice reported in the NYTimes
<a href=“http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/05/waiting/[/url]”>http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/05/waiting/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>…wait-listed applicants may well be able to improve their chances of winning a favorable verdict, even if it means throwing themselves on the mercy of the court.</p>

<p>To that end, The Choice sought some advice for readers from a veteran college counselor, Ted de Villefranca of the Peddie School in New Jersey.
First, Mr. de Villefranca asked if he could speak bluntly to those readers of The Choice who are currently holding multiple acceptances to top colleges. His plea, adapted from what he tells his own students, was as follows:</p>

<p>If you have been offered a spot at a college/university you know you aren’t going to, the right thing to do is to let them know that as swiftly as possible. If you do, then maybe spaces will open up early and colleges may know about yield and the wait list sooner.</p>

<p>If you are on the waiting list, you know you want others to do that because it might impact your future — so, bottom line, let places know you aren’t coming — again, it’s the right thing to do.</p>

<p>Next, Mr. de Villefranca turned his attention to those of you whose heads might be a bit woolly from being placed in waiting-list limbo. Again drawing from what he advises his own students, he suggested:</p>

<p>First, respond swiftly to the waiting list. Some places look at response time.</p>

<p>With that response to the waiting list (sometimes by mail and sometimes electronically) also comes an opportunity to write a follow-up letter about why said college is a great fit and why you want to be there.</p>

<p>If a coach was involved, or perhaps a faculty member at that college or a special interest alum — let them know that status, too, and ask for advice.</p>

<p>If the place is your top choice, tell them that. But don’t make false promises. “I’ll go if I get in” is fine — if you mean it! It’s called lying if you don’t.</p>