@Lindagaf, I’m not sure what is nonsense. You basically repeated what I said. Too many students are applying to too few colleges. Now maybe you reacted to the fact that I said it was a travesty. What’s a travesty is parents and students believing that you can’t be successful unless you attend one of these overly subscribed institutions. That’s been shown over and over to be false. High achieving students are successful no matter where they go.
I have gotten in to all of the schools I applied to so far (Lehigh,Villanova, Binghamton,Providence) and got denied to Northeastern. I was very disappointed with Northeastern because I matched up with all of their stats, but almost everyone else I know got denied or WL as well. As to your point a ton of kids I know have gotten WL from a bunch of schools they thought they should’ve gotten in to. I don’t know why this is happening the only thing I can think of is that there was so many applicants fighting over the same amount of spots available in previous years. The only school I am still waiting on is Lafayette.
A huge percentage of students who accept a spot on the waitlist when they get their decision never follow up with any kind of LOCI or sending more grades or anything. These kids move on mentally but not on paper, so if you’re on a waitlist and TRYING to get in to the school, you have a better shot than 1:1800 or whatever number the list is at. For example, my older child accepted 3 waitlist spots and never sent anything ever or intended to go to those schools. My younger child got 4 waitlists and clicked yes, but will only pursue one of them. Emotionally she has moved on, however, as she should. It all feels so fake now.
This is in respect to 14 schools applied, 4 waitlists, 2 rejections, and 8 acceptances, 4 of them with major scholarships, 1 FA package TBD. She was in at least the top 50% at all of the schools according to marketing materials, top 25% at most of them.
I personally feel any advice from previous years–even last year-- is old advice and no longer true or pertinent. This was a crazy, crazy, unpredictable year for many more kids than in the past. No one really knows what a match school is anymore.
It seems like a kid’s best bet is to build a “brand” out of themselves these days. This is incredibly sad for our kids.
@redpoodles my kid’s 2 waitlist are UC’s. I’m not even sure how or who she would send additional info to? These are schools that explicitly from day one, said they don’t do LOR’s or senior mid -year grades.
@austinmshauri everyone on this thread seems to think most kids can’t afford their waitlist schools because they won’t get merit aid. We were always expecting to be full pay if she went to any Cal State or UC school.
The schools are also somewhat to blame for this as some shamelessly court more applicants through marketing efforts. Some of the outreach to low income and minority kids is a good thing, but some of the random fee waiver and deadline extensions to every tom, dick and Harry, just ends up making the wl problem worse.
I do agree @wisteria100 . Right now, I think there at least six threads about this on CC in some form or other, so I may have already said this but it bears repeating: I think too many students do not really understand how to choose appropriate colleges to apply to. They might have great stats, but aren’t exceptional. They don’t realize they aren’t exceptional, and they apply to too many reach schools. It doesn’t matter if many kids are being offered WL, what matter is if kids are getting in anwywhere. Yes, they are. As long as a student is getting in somewhere I don’t really see why there is so much concern.
Here is the CRITICAL thing that many here don’t seem to be grasping: Students are applying to more and more schools. They are going to get more and more WL and rejections, especially if they overestimate their stats. They think if they just submit a few more, their lottery number might win. They don’t understand it doesn’t work that way, but it’s not really a complex issue.
IMO, The colleges are partly to blame, but so is Common App. They are being greedy. They could limit the amount of apps a kid submits. It would help a little to address the imbalance between rich and poor. Rich kids are going crazy. 20 apps are not uncommon now. 14 seems to be the new 10. It’s the lower income kids who suffer.
This isn’t the problem. The problem is defining a match as a school the student is certain they’ll get into. That’s a safety. A match is simply a school where the student falls into the middle of the previously accepted student demographic. There’s still a significant chance they won’t get in or will get waitlisted.
@eyemgh, the problem lies with students that profile in the top-25% at every school, but for a range of reasons they aren’t what the school is looking for this year - those are the kids that may get put on the waitlist at some, denied at others and scratch their head as to what they did wrong.
I’ve been waitlisted by six schools. From MIT (above reach) to Trinity College. Still waiting for 5 Ivys.
For every school except MIT -
I am pretty sure it’s the financial reasons. I believe they think I could get accepted to a need-blind or high-reach school cause I basically request more than 55k of financial aid, so they probably want to see if they will have any aid left for intl applicants as me, or they probably know I will reject them if I do get accepted to my reach schools.
But yea, this is way too odd to have this many waitlists. People are being waitlisted at Duke with a 27 ACT. Sounds like a soft rejection or financial aid concerns too me.
P.S. Too many people are superstated in last 2-3 years comparing to previous years. I have a feeling that mid-range schools are rejecting people with a decent (1300ish) SAT. Something(s) needs to change
@Chembiodad, they didn’t do anything wrong. There are simply too many kids applying to too few schools. Differentiating becomes extremely subjective, to the point of randomness.
@eyemgh, agree, and our twin DD’s have great choices with acceptances at Bates, Carleton, Colby, Colgate, Hamilton, Kenyon, and Oberlin and waitlisted at Middlebury, Notre Dame and Wesleyan. While they’ll be eagerly awaiting a couple more on Ivy Day, they/we are proud of what they’ve accomplished and they’ll do great things at whichever of these wonderful schools that they each pick.
@Chembiodad, they’ll do great things if they go to Podunk U. There’s plenty of evidence that it’s the student and not the school that determines future success. Certainly they’ll do fine wherever they end up.
@Lindagaf
Agree. And if you are applying to 20 schools, you are probably not submitting excellent supplements to all of them. There just isn’t the time for that. And if they’re not excellent, that’s probably a wait list.
I know a couple of kids applying to ALL Ivies plus another 8-10 schools that rank within the top 25. This approach is crazy, and my prediction with these kids came true. These kids are ill-focused and ill-fit to most of these schools. The WL is long and dreadful. I told them to consider those as rejects. Their parents thought I was too pessimistic and not understanding how great their kids were. To them, it is becoming a ridiculous game of game and randomness. Kids who would best fit for the top 25 to top 50 schools think they are ready for the top 10. Kids play this delusional game lost their chance with top schools which will best fit for them. Meanwhile, many top schools are afraid to give out straight out rejects when they are rejecting high stats kids and admitting those with significantly different stats. Bottomline…IMO… the top 10 schools are looking for superhumans with something “exceptional” IF the application is not an URM AND/OR got no hook. The top 11-25 schools look for TOP STATS kids with a STRONG emphasis on “Fit”. The top 26-50 schools should be “safety” schools for high stats kids, BUT due to yield protection, many of these kids will get WL or RJ unless significant interest to attend is demonstrated. It has been a crazy season for college admissions and with Ivy 30th coming, it is about to get even more nutty. JMHO.
I have heard that Boston U. Has further complicated admissions by guaranteeing high school seniors admission as a transfer after they attend one year at a 4 yr college.
How horrible to make them begin at another school knowing it is just temporary. Again it looks like some places are just managing their numbers at the cost of students who just want to know they are admitted or not.
Daughter got waitlisted at cmu and rejected to USC. The three left are all super reaches. We are just very happy she got into UCSB cs, UCSD applied math, and UDub pre-science. Now she has a tough choice to decide on which of these great schools to go to.
CMU priority waitlist will be the only one she pays attention to with zero expectation of getting in.
We had a long talk with our son today & amid all the disappointment (4 WL & rejections from UCLA & USC this week), he is excited to go to U Miami – which was one of his top schools from the beginning. In some ways, rejection/WL is good because he may have chosen a “more pretigious” school (in the eyes of a tautological ranking system by a now-defunct publication) for the wrong reasons over a school that excited him & that he really could see himself at academically & socially. In the midst of all this, he is going to stay on 2 of the 4 WL & drop off of the 2 that he really could not see himself realistically picking over UM. We discussed that we hoped others gave up their WL spot if they were not interested, such to increase his odds & he should return the favor.
He only has real reach schools left – and while I agree with @Lindagaf that students should know their range & not overextend, I consider WF to now be a reach (based on 4 WL & 2 rejections from other schools, some of which were matches); Duke (legacy) & Cornell (interest in a specific program) are his 2 super reaches…but what the hell – 2 reaches is ok if you know that they are a reach. It sucks when you go 1 for 6 at “match” schools — I would have thought he’d get 2 or 3 of them. I will have my next child be more realistic & also shoot for more academic merit at “lesser” schools (state flagships that will give lots of OOS merit).
But the answer can’t be to apply to even more schools. So how does this end? Not well, I expect.
The answer seems to be to apply to a better “range” of schools. It is an approach that has been successful for quite a while: Having a couple of reach schools is ok. Having several “match” schools is also good. Make sure you have a few safeties where you would actually like to attend. The difficulty is figuring out what makes for a good match and a good safety. Many students and parents tend to overestimate their likelihood of admission to various schools.
If a school that used to be a match is becoming less so due to dramatically increased numbers of applications, you will need to find some other matches.
@Eyquem, agree the application race caught many off guard as even guidance counselors cant keep up with the race to the bottom as schools aren’t growing enough to keep up, especially the LAC’s.
My twin DD were fortunate in that they were admitted to all 3 safeties for them (top 20-25 LAC’s), admitted to 4/5 targets with 1 waitlist for them (top 7-20 LAC’s), but only waitlisted to 1/5 top-6 LAC’s; still waiting on some Ivys for the non-hooked DD, but we understand it’s tough. They had a hook with one being a student athlete so otherwise it could have very likely ended up differently.
They have great choices; many of their friends are faced with a long list of WL’s and denials…