Guys I have a question about waitlists.
If one chooses to accept the wait list at a certain university and if he gets admitted, does he have to attend that university?
Would be really helpful if anyone could reply!
No! I don’t know of any schools where it’s binding. However, since they accept people off the waitlist in waves, you probably won’t have a lot of time to decide yes/no. You’ll probably have a week max. so start thinking about that now 
Good luck!
No. And I have heard that if you get accepted off WL, some schools will give you as little as 24 hours to decide. You need to be 100% certain if you say yes, because you will be costing someone else a spot.
No. But often if you tell them in advance that you WILL come if they offer you a place, it will give you a preferred position on the list (because they know that they’ll get the spot filled in one iteration if they contact you.) Which means, by definition, that you should only do this at one school where you are willing to enroll. With that said, you can be on many lists.
How does accepting a waitlist “cost someone else a spot”? If OP accepts a WL spot then decides on another college, the school can accept someone else off the WL.
@austinmshauri becasue if you say yes, then turn around and say no, that next person may be negatively affected. My understanding is that many selective colleges don’t rank WLs. So they call, you say yes, a few days go by, maybe another person they might have offered is bypassed because you said yes and didn’t follow through. And maybe another person has meanwhile committed to something else.
Moral: don’t say yes, don’t say you will definitely attend, unless you mean it.
Waitlist spots aren’t ED agreements. Accepting a spot on a WL doesn’t mean a student is committed to attending if they happen to be accepted and they don’t have to say they’ll attend to take a spot on a WL. If they’re accepted but decide not to attend, the college will give the spot to someone else. That’s what the WL is for.
How could the “next person” be negatively affected? And why would the college “bypass” the next person on the list just because a WL student turns them down? It doesn’t make sense. Even if the next person has committed to another college, they can decline that offer (and probsbly lose their deposit) and enroll in the WL school. It’s pretty typical; there’s even a term for it – “summer melt.”
Thankyou everyone for the help!