DS has been waitlisted at 3 schools, all actually less selective than his first choice to which he gained admission, which I think is weird. Why so many waitlist decisions? More WL than outright rejections, which somehow seems different than in the past? Are schools hedging now that yield rates are fluctuating so much year to year? Or could they somehow tell or suspect that they were his backup choices? And the two rejections so far, one was a “super reach” but the other I felt sure he would get an acceptance. No problem since he’s in at the school he most wanted, but I feel we had to participate in the “arms race” or roulette or lottery that admissions has become when he had to apply RD after being deferred ED to his top choice. Since there is no rhyme nor reason kids need to apply to 10-12-+ schools, which decreases most school’s yields and simply ratchets up the competition. Even within his large high school, the number of applications to any one school can vary from 35-40 one year to 70-08 the next, so there is no way of accurately predicting the chances of success. FWIW I now thing that being deferred ED means you have better than average chances of being accepted RD, but I wouldn’t want to prolong the agony hanging on waitlists unless it were really for “The School.”
My D is on thre waitlists now, two to reaches, both schools she really loves. She does have some excellent accepted options and is going to proceed with one, of course. But if one of,the top two comes up, she will take it. She plans to ask her GC to make a call, and to write a LOCI. When should the LOCI be sent?
Do those schools consider “level of applicant’s interest”, and did he show interest?
An unrelated reason could be that those schools’ selection criteria differ from what is commonly assumed. Many people here tend to give a strong emphasis on SAT/ACT scores when assessing reach/match/safety. But if the school emphasizes test scores much less, that may give an inaccurate assessment. There have been several threads where students believing that a UC was a “safety” based on their SAT/ACT scores were surprised to be rejected or waitlisted; based on their GPAs, they were no better than high match (and perhaps reach for those applying to popular majors).
@45rabbit google “common data set bowdoin” and you should find a link to their overall common data set stats which would include their waitlist stats. You should look at multiple years of data as it can vary widely from year to year.
Just because a school meets demonstrated need for RD, doesn’t mean during the WL round they wouldn’t just take students who do not need FA, especially if they are out of FA.
I would have your GC (if he/she is willing) to call the WL school to find out why the student was WL, so it could be addressed in the GC’s LOR and in the LOCI. I would send the packet second or third week of April, then follow up with calls the few weeks of May. After May 1, they should have pretty good idea if they are going to their WL. Unlike RD, adcoms would most likely not send out an admitted letter until there is an commitment from the student.
I have an entirely unpopular opinion of WL…there is a reason(s) that student “X” was not admitted, could be grades, test scores, too many bassoon players, color of your hair, wrong zip code, who knows, but generally a reason (even a small insignificant one). At any rate school “A” decided they would rather date student “Z”, School "A"has basically said “we like you student “X”, your cool, but we would really rather date student “Z” but you know if things don’t work out with student “Z” I guess it would be ok it we dated”. Why would you be willing to accept a date when you know that you are second choice. Nobody (or school) is all that…
With that said, I am not sure why you would decide to accept a WL spot at more than 1 school. if you have 3 or 4 schools that you would rather attend than the one you commit to on May 1st, there was a problem with your initial list and you are unlikely to ever be happy at school #3/#4 on your list. Grow where you are planted.
Yes, I know all of the above is an oversimplification of the whole WL process… but you have to start weeding out the decisions somehow, lol.
My D got off the wait list at her preferred school. If it were a situation where she got in by the skin of her teeth, was on the lower end of qualified, and would have struggled to stay afloat there, we would have discouraged her from accepting. As it was, she was applying OOS at a school which is legally prevented from accepting less than 82% of its students from in state.
She accepted her spot, went on to graduate with highest honors, and circled back a few years later as a grad student in the #2 ranked program in the country in her field. So no regrets whatsoever!
Not every school on a student’s list is equal. In my kid’s case, she was WL at 2 schools because adcoms thought she wouldn’t necessary attend if admitted. They were probably right if she was admitted to her top choice, but she wasn’t, so she pursued schools next level (interest) down. Since then, she has graduated from her WL school, loved her four years there and landed her dream job. No one knew or remember it was her WL school. She said looking back her WL school was probably a better fit than her top choice school back then (suburban vs urban), and she was glad she pursued her WL school.
If you want to use the dating analogy, haven’t you ever been in a situation when someone thought you wouldn’t date him, but in reality you probably had a crush on him and would have gone out with him if he had just pursued you a bit?
@Oldfort makes a very good point. I’ve read here parents saying, “well, Junior doesn’t want to go to a school where they didn’t want him from the beginning!” Well, that logic puzzles me. The school hasn’t changed, so if Junior loved the school because of x program, it seems silly to not avail oneself of that program if offered. Secondly, once the students arrive, they don’t ever interface with the Admissions office again. No one else ever will know the student came off the wait list. Professors don’t know, students don’t know, no one would know unless the student told people. They all arrive on campus on equal footing as far as their “desirability factor” goes.
This is not the time for Ego. If the school is a top choice, stay on the wait list. You never know what might happen. Sure, move on as far as deposits and such go, but keep your mind open. If the phone call comes, don’t pout that the student was not accepted from the get go. Take advantage of the good fortune if the student comes off the wait list unless they have truly mentally/emotionally moved on irrevocably.
the dating analogy really doesn’t work bcos of the money thing. Perhaps the acceptances are at does-not-meed-full need schools, but the WL’s are in meets-full-need schools…it would make economic sense to hang onto them, if financial need is a consideration.
@oldfort - well to tell you the truth, no, lol!. I am definitely of the… you snooze, you looze or too bad, so sad, sort of mindset, (well I like to think I would be anyway) 
I am not saying that second choice can’t be successful, clearly it can. I was just saying that for our family, waitlist is not something we are willing to “wait” for. We constructed the initial where to apply list with the intention that EVERY school would be one that D16 would be happy to attend not just settle on. Of course we were not looking at top #25 (or even top #50 really) schools. D16 was deferred EA and accepted RD for one of her schools, for her that was a clear message to choose somewhere else (especially as the RD were rolling and they waited a good 2 months before offering her a spot) I suppose there might be a compelling reasons to wait on a decision from a HYPS or similar school, we were aiming at the second half of the top 100 (her highest reach and acceptance was #61) and the game rules are a bit different for those schools.
I know at least one student from our high school who was waitlisted at her first choice and was offered a place after GC called and said it had been the student’s first choice. She was a good candidate, top of the pool.(This is a big public school BTW, but our GC really do go the extra mile despite big caseloads.) Older son was waitisted at a school he didn’t care about, they told him some years they had accepted zero student and other years quite a few, but their intention was always to accept the right number. They did not have a huge waitlist.
@CAorBust - my D16 applied to 12 schools…there is actually a valid reason for 12. She selected 6 traditional 4 year schools, 2 reach, 2 matches and 2 safeties. She also selected 6 direct entry BS/DPT programs again 2 reach, 2 matches and 2 safeties. Why 12? Because the acceptance chances for the direct entry BS/DPT are limited. Fortunately she was accepted at all 12 (or unfortunately because she then had 12 to narrow down). So I am going to have to disagree there are sometimes valid reasons to apply to 12 schools. Now, there will be no chance that my D18 will be applying to 12 traditional 4 year schools.
Some kids need to know that they gave Plan A their best shot in order to have closure and move on with Plan B. I respect that 100%. I would encourage my kid to check his/her ego if the fact that it takes a school two months to accept them was in any way part of their decision making.
Go look at an admissions office during “the season”. Phones ringing off the hook from GC’s and parents and athletic coaches. The head of Alumni Relations walking in to put in a plug for “he’s dumb as a box but his grandad just endowed a nanotechnology lab”. Massive flowcharts and pie charts and graphs up on the white boards to make sure that every geographic region is getting covered; that the student orchestra will get enough viola players and trumpet players and that the drama department is getting enough sopranos and tenors. Meetings every day with Deans- we have a new study abroad program in South Korea- are you keeping an eye out for kids who want to major in some type of Asian Studies? Meetings every day to recap on tours and interviews and info sessions- last year at this time we had 12,000 family units take a tour. This year it’s only 9,000. Can somebody run the numbers and figure out why?
Your kid is mad because it took two months?
They’re not making pancakes inside a diner. They need to match up every single SAT score and every single guidance counselor letter with the right social security number and make sure that an actual human being reads the essays that kids labor over.
You want an answer in a week???
@Blossom - Seriously? it has nothing to do with an ego check! No we didn’t expect an answer in a week, but 5 months for a decision is an indication that D16 was not a top or even mid candidate.
The school had the completed application from October 1 when D16 applied EA. EA deadline was November 1 and the specific program RD deadline was Dec 1. Initial EA decisions were released by December 1 and rolling RD for specific program decisions began to be released by end of December. D16 received her deferral in mid January. So clearly they had reviewed her application for the EA decision release on Dec 1 and decided that she was not a good EA candidate. Then clearly did not think she was a top candidate for RD either because she did not receive an EA deferral or RD decision until mid January when they deferred her to the overall college RD pool.
This particular school has a portal that has a discussion forum for ALL applicants. Every day D16 would see “just got accepted to specific program” posts. Even one that said accepted to “x” major one week and three weeks later a “just switched my major to specific program major, so excited”. So yes in this instance a deferred decision was an indication from this particular school that D16 was not an “ideal” candidate for their program and that they were weighing her application against those they received RD. She finally received an acceptance to specific program in early March. It had nothing to do with ego it was D16 making an assessment that she needed to look elsewhere because she didn’t measure up.
A deferral is different that a waitlist decision. For this particular school I am going to guess that the fact that there was an “interim” admission director at the helm probably held the decision making process up a bit.
There was a superbly qualified girl at our private high school. #3 in her class. She was rejected by all the Ivies and waitlisted by Chicago. She had the school counsellor and head of school contact University of Chicago and wrote them a letter staying how very interested she was in the college and WHY. She gave specific examples. She was admitted. So it can happen. It does help if you have your school’s backing and have a college counsellor who knows his/her stuff and is will to go to bat for you or your child.
@labegg I know what you mean. The girl I mention above applied to 12 universities and got waitlisted or rejected by everywhere including every Ivy. She was initially only admitted to Wellesley and Middlebury. I applied to 12 and got accepted to 11, including two Ivies, Cal, UCLA and Pomona. She was ranked higher than me and took all APs. I took 3 or so.
@UCBalumnus, I’m thinking it may have less to do with the individual and his/her merits on a standalone basis and more to do with the other applicants esp from the same high school and geog.
Re not accepting WL or RD admission after being deferred EA/ED: I agree that is silly if it’s the clear favorite school. Once you’re in, you’re in, who cares what path? Only difference would be if less/no financial or merit aid was awarded due to delayed decision.
DS was admitted to first choice school RD after being deferred ED and we are thrilled. We happen to know 3 students applied ED from his high school, one was admitted and two deferred. The ED admit is a stronger student and a debate champion so no hard feelings. Both deferred students were offered admission RD; my son will accept but I think the other student may have moved on!
Sure, there is/was a feeling that the school was keeping its options open to see if anything better came along, eg a stronger student denied his/her ED Ivy. And it did cost us a lot of time and anguish, plus more application and other fees, to apply to a slew of RD schools, especially when the heart-stopping large number of other students from his high school applied RD to his first choice. But I think it was a useful experience in resilience and perseverance for all of us, and there are sure to be plenty more disappointments to deal with in the future.
I don’t understand the feeling that you wouldn’t want to be a student at the school who waitlisted you or took so long to make a decision. These are schools, not dates, and your reasons for wanting to attend are presumably still the same. My older son was waitlisted at several law schools and accepted at one that he was happy to attend. He deposited at this school, and then very late in the game, got accepted to one of the other schools. He immediately accepted, and had a very successful 3 years there, finishing at the top of his class. No one other than admissions knew he was the last one in (although I think my son wouldn’t have cared if people knew he was the last one in). His stats were good enough to get in earlier in the process, it just didn’t work out that way.
Now that I think of it, my son also got in to his nursery school off the waitlist. That went well too! 
@labegg: I wasn’t saying it is unnecessary to apply to 12 or more schools, it is necessary in many cases, but that it is really unfortunate that it is necessary due to the vagaries of the admissions process. As @blossom pointed out admissions is a complex and somewhat chaotic and arbitrary process so unfortunately, especially if you are aiming for Ivies and the like, you need to get the numbers up. It would be nice if there could be a “matching” process like they do for medical residencies, then every student and every school would know they made the best possible match. I also think that ED could be making the RD process even more fraught, as more students scramble for fewer remaining slots and are not limited to one choice. I think the more students applying for fewer spots results in applying to more schools, which results in more students applying for fewer spots, which…is an arms race as everyone ratchets up. Maybe the perceived increase in WLs is the schools’ defense in the arms race.