Waitlist Epidemic?

"The admissions practices at Colby are entirely driven by rankings, to the point where I would question the values of an institution willing to engage in what I feel is deception. "

This is of course not unique to Colby, but I fully agree. Well said!

I am not sure if this thread is supposed to be about deceptive marketing practices and apparently random admission policies, but I suppose that these are major factors in the waitlist epidemic.

I am aware of private high schools that are very focused on placing their students in college. These schools limit the number of colleges to which a student can apply. How do they do this? By limiting the number of schools a guidance counselor will submit a letter to (e.g. four). The rationale is that this allows all the students to be competitive at each school they apply to—spreading/diversifying the application wealth, so to speak. Plus, the private school has worked hard over the years to create relationships with colleges and universities as well (and thus, the HS knows the caliber of a student that can be accepted, the college knows an applicant from the HS is highly committed to the college, and the HS can focus its energies more efficiently and persuasively on each child’s needs/goals). Just a different way to think about any over-applying problem.

I am curious about this and have no dog in the fight… but looking at 2016’s CDS, adding all 42 students Colby admitted off the waitlist would increase the admit rate by only 0.55%. Is that enough to move the needle to do it purposefully?

@EyeVeee
I agree with you about schools trying to manipulate their numbers, (Chicago did the same with the wl last yr), but i do think wl admits get captured in selectivity numbers. If you look at the CDS the wl accepts are counted, But what it allows the schools to do, is to write a press release when initial decisions are mailed, saying this yr we admitted only __% of applicants. Then they don’t revise it when the wl is closed. But it is accounted for in the CDS

@kodiakandrosita My H & I have talked about this very idea (of ranking similar to med school apps). The problem, as I see it, is that you may knock yourself out of the running at a match by listing a reach school #1 & your match as #2. ED allows you to apply to your #1 without ruining your chances at #2 if you don’t get into #1.

I do think a modified/stratified ranking system would work as to some schools who are similar profiles & would give similar aid (in fact they could agree to give the same aid (give +/- 5% or so) via the same aid formula – many schools NPC costs are near identical, so this may not be that hard to do). A prime example may be the UC system – it’s all the same app & you check boxes (& pay the corresponding multiplier) for each campus. If students were forced to rank among UCLA, Cal, UCSB, UCSB, etc., you might end up with more quality kids getting into either of the flagships vs some kids getting into 1 & others rejected from 2.

Similarly, the Ivies could rank, as could the elite non-Ivies (Duke, Vanderbilt, ND, U Chicago, Northwestern, etc.).

However, I don’t realistically see this happening as schools like to retain their independence & decide for themselves who they want, vs who wants them among the applicant pool. Similarly, the applicants who would have their choice of 3-4 Ivies want to pick, not have the schools pick for them.

On a side note, I believe I read somewhere that the Common App will only send 15 (maybe 20) apps before it cuts off. You could avoid the cap by using some schools’ alternative apps, though.

@ChartresBlue Having a guidance counselor with a reasonable workload and that knows your student is really a luxury and not available at many public schools. For this to work overall our public schools would need much better funding and it doesn’t look like this is going to happen any time soon.

I disagree with the policy of the private school mentioned above by a poster, which limits each student on how many schools they can apply to (& probably how many kids can apply to each school). A large part of what private school tuition covers is personalized college counseling – our small school has 3 counselors (with a superivisor) for 125 kids in the senior class. That means s/he is writing recs for 42 kids, unlike a public school counselor who may have to write for 400+ kids. Why should a HS counselor get to decide which 5 kids can apply to USC, for example? Kids will find a way to overcome artificial limits, whether it is getting recs from other sources or appealing directly to adcoms. My dad recounts how back in the '50s, his Catholic HS would only send recs & transcripts to Catholic universities or the instate public schools (in NY). Finally, the gate burst when one top student told the HS admins that he was applying to Harvard, with or without their permission. He got into Harvard & that was the end of that restrictive policy as other top students were not going to come to that HS if they were barred from applying to Ivies (or other top schools).

We went through this 2 years ago with our S. It’s insane. We were very well prepared for the process, as much as we could be. Our initial thought was to apply to maybe 4-6 schools; he ended up applying to 16. We thought it was insane, yet we still did it. Why, you ask?

Because we needed substantial financial aid. I suspect there are a lot of middle class families like ours out there, making $50-$60K/year. And while our son had excellent stats – 4.0 UW GPA, 12 APs, valedictorian – he wanted to major in engineering, so lots of competition out there. That’s a very tough spot to be in for white male – OOS publics mostly look for full pay applicants. Our In-state public flagship – a default option – provides very little merit aid (even to kids like our S) and almost no need-based aid (unless Pell Grant qualified which we are not), plus R&B is super expensive and we live hours away so no commuting possible. That only leaves private schools with deep pockets – the same schools everyone else applies to! And since the results are so unpredictable from year to year, we wanted to spread the net wide vs. picking 1-2 reach schools at random.

He ended up applying to 3 OOS public engineering schools, with the hope of getting best merit scholarships available, which would make them cheaper options than our in-state flagship. He also applied to 2 cheaper in-state schools, and 10 private schools like Cornell, NW, MIT etc.

The result? At a time – pure disappointment for him! 2 rejections and 8 WLs from the privates; in-state acceptances with poor FA packages matching NPCs; 2 OOS publics acceptances with $0 FA; and finally 1 OOS public with outstanding merit FA!

Looking back, we did the right thing even though it felt wrong at a time – we succeeded in giving him a chance at excellent engineering education without taking out parent loans. As much as he was disappointed with all the WLs, he was pleased and excited that there was a school out there that really, really wanted him! He took his name off of all WLs and never looked back. He found paid research position and was able to get additional merit scholarships his sophomore year (school allows stacking), to the point that he now “makes money” going to school!

I still don’t like the practice, and the admissions game colleges are playing. But for a segment of applicants - high stats, low income - this makes perfect sense, as it means potentially saving tens of thousands of dollars. And, unfortunately, you don’t know ahead of time where that money might be coming from! And if you don’t try, there is no chance you get any. So you play bad system the best you can, even if it feels wrong at a time.

@tallgrass – What a great story with an awesome ending! We are similar to your profile, except a higher income (bu still need lots of aid) & our son has lower stats (95th % vs 99th). He is facing a similar predicament (3 rejections, 3 acceptances & 5 WL) – but in the midst of the disappointment of so many WLs at match schools – one “low match” school is throwing lots of merit $ at him & it was one of his top (realistic) 3. So, now he is focusing on this school & is enthusiastically visiting over Spring Break. The only thing I would change (for kid #2) would be to maybe apply to fewer “high match” & find more “low match” schools that are less popular or which have guaranteed OOS FA (like Alabama, which didn’t come onto our radar until too late).

@wisteria100 My suggestions are based on having been there last summer, and loosely following the school as one we didn’t apply to. My sense is that all of the changes are new, and the CDS is based on the class of 2019. The total applications per CDS was 7,593. Class of 2021…11,190. Applications are up 117% over the past 3 years. Reactions to / management of that dramatic an increase takes a few years to implement. We’ll know in 2 years if the WL was a tool used to manage reporting / results.

@EyeVeee , @DadTwoGirls "The admissions practices at Colby are entirely driven by rankings, to the point where I would question the values of an institution willing to engage in what I feel is deception. "

Really? What about the values of a student who prefers Williams to Middlebury, because “Williams is ranked #1”? If you’re going to question values, better to question the values of all the players, including ratings-obsessed students and their parents.

Those of you with kids on the waitlist may find some useful info here:
http://www.bestcollegefit.com/blog/archives/1889

@CodyChesnutt point taken…but…

Williams is ranked #1 and between the class of 2018 and the class of 2021 sees a 36% increase in applications. Middlebury sees a 9% increase.

New President, new Dean of Admissions, (arguably same education), and Colby increases 117%. There is no doubt that Colby has done this solely for rankings (free applications, no supplemental essays). Being ranked at the top means not having to be aggressive, but at what point does a school go from self promotion to overly aggressive? The school is using kids they have no interest in to juice their scores. All schools do, but not to this extent.

If they are admitting kids from the waitlist already…why? Decisions have been out 10 days. There is no chance they’ve received hundreds of withdrawals…so what’s going on? To the best of my knowledge, Middlebury and Williams have their entire wait list still waiting.

@EyeVeee My point is that colleges, including Colby, are responding to market demand. And what many kids and their parents seem to care a lot about (maybe most about) these days is institutional rank. You can paint Colby as an egregious outlier I suppose, but most of the elite LACs, including Williams, play the game.

Although I applaud colleges (Reed) that manage somehow to remain outside the fray, I don’t fault Colby for doing everything in its power to juice its numbers, since that is what deluded students and their parents value. Harsh, but true.

@Steglitz90 Thanks. I was pleasantly surprised at the turnaround in attitude - the more kids get rejected (I view WL as a soft rejection), the more they appreciate being “wanted”. I am a firm believer that things happen for a reason, and that as long as you try your best, you will be just fine in the end. He loves the school, cannot imagine being anywhere else, and I am sure same will be true for your son and thousands of other highly qualified but “rejected” kids.

Speaking of aggressive tactics - I believe that Bucknell and Emory got kicked out of the US News rankings for a year because they falsified their admissions data!

I have heard this before, and while I can’t explicitly prove it is false, I haven’t seen anything confirming it either. Obviously all colleges want to drive up their application rates, but what makes you think it isn’t toward the goal of attracting more and better kids? I am not that cynical to think it is some kind of Machiavellian exploitation.

I believe it is far more likely that a free app with no essay a would attract a high stats kid to add Colby to his list that it would to get a lower stats kid to reach there, don’t you? And that kid might just pick Colby if Ivy Day doesn’t go his way?

The school is using kids they have no interest in to juice their scores. All schools do, but not to this extent.

This is a 2 way street — my son used Colby to an extent as well. He is one of those who applied after being emailed a slick ad by Colby in late December with a fee waiver code & he just added them to the CA & pressed submit. He actually applied because we asked him to AFTER we ran the NPC #s – which came out to $17,000 (vs $37,000-$47,000) for other schools. We thought, why not? Even though our son didn’t really want to go to a LAC, this is a great school at potentially a steal (comparitively speaking). His stats were right in the mix/upper middle. If he gets in off the WL & gets the NPC aid, we will strongly encourage him to look at it.

Not correct as to US News and Bucknell. They did misreport data but immediately issued corrected data, which US News accepted. US News said the difference between the misreported data and the corrected data was not significant enough to change the school’s numeral ranking. They were never removed from US News ranking but I don’t know how other publications dealt with it. Bucknell didn’t deny what happened and immediately fully explained it. You could be a bit more careful about what you post.

The CDS lacks clarity with regard to the wait-listed students admitted, insofar as it doesn’t specify whether that number represents just the number admitted or the number admitted+enrolled. With a yield of 508/1710=29.7%, Colby would likely need to admit at least twice as many students off the weight list to garner an additional 42 students.