How does Colby waitlisting 1000 students and admitting 500 off the waitlist help them in the rankings? The number reported on the CDS is ACCEPTANCE rate. If the WL students end up coming off, aren’t they part of that acceptance figure?
@suzyQ7 There is some confusion as to whether WL admits are only counted if they enroll – it is unclear based on the CDS. I do think that Colby has made an effort to increase its application #s. Because of that, and the uncertainty that the larger #s mean to their yield, they need more enrollment management, hence a larger WL. They can’t have a situation where they admit 25% of 11,000 & have too many enroll – where would they put them? So, the least cynical answer is the WL is merely an enrollment management device & not one to gain advantage/increase rankings. I personally think that it is being done for both reasons (enrollment management & rankings).
That doesn’t explain wait listing more students than are in the entire class unless they expect a yield of 0%!
Yet many colleges (like BC & NE) are WL more than the initial number of accepted students. I think that they can expect 50% to stay on the WL. Now they have a diverse pool, so when they need more males, artists, business majors, Wyoming residents, etc., they have pool to pick from rather than taking the next # in line…
For all the complaints about Colby, know that for the class of 2019, they were overenrolled. A small school in rural Maine has limited housing options if they have overflow.
For the class of 2020, they went to the WL for the last roughly 50 students to make sure it didn’t happen again, and they probably plan to do that again. There really isn’t room for 10 extra students. Other schools (Dickinson comes to mind) have had similar problems.
Someone on the Colby CC board claimed to get off the WL within 3 days of decisions coming out. True? Who knows? Possibly, but as someone who has been around here for a while, I am skeptical. Last year, they waited until May 1 to make calls.
Under the current president, Colby has been working hard to diversify it’s student body. It took 30 kids in the Questbridge match in the fall. It eliminated application fees and allows students to self report scores (and only requires that they pay to send them when admitted as verification. ) Why? To increase accessibility. To entice kids who are from outside New England. We’re they trying to trick you? I doubt it. Did you realize when you were applying that there are only 500 spots in the class? A chunk were gone after ED (atletic recruits, legacy, Questbridge. ) But gee, folks. They took 17% of their applicants last year. Anyone knows that the odds are going to be tough.
Stanford offered WL to 1569 last year. 1044 took it. 55 got in. Williams, with a freshman class of 553, offered 2343 students a place on their WL. 864 took it. 24 got in. Bates offered WL to 1063. 334 took it. 49 were admitted. Where’s the outrage there? I could go on, but this is the norm. The problem is circular. It’s hard to get in. More students apply to more schools. Schools have no idea if the kid who applied to 15 schools will say yes when admitted. They are as confused about the new normal as we are frustrated. It’s discouraging to be caught in this vortex. DS got 6 WL letters last year.
If you learn more about a school through the application process and don’t like it, don’t take the WL spot.
@Coll5678 Bing has a tiny engineering school, and it is REALLY REALLY CHEAP for in state.
Their LAC is relatively easier to get into, my S1 got in, but S2 wanted engineering which is a different ballgame.
Also this does kinda prove that kids who are WL often are truly qualified, just have to wait and
see yield. As alums, I wondered if we could call admissions and lobby to get to the front of the WL, but my S was very happy to attend other schools where he was admitted, so we didn’t bother.
@EyeVeee Just in regards to Williams’ acceptance rate- they just dropped their subject test requirement this year and their application numbers went up big (I believe up ~25%), so they are certainly playing the game today. I totally agree that Colby is being even more aggressive though. Other NESCACs are doing the same- Middlebury has no supplement and is test flexible, Bowdoin and Wesleyan are test optional, Williams has an optional supplement, etc. All these schools are fighting for a lower acceptance rate.
@wisteria100 You are exactly right. I can tell everyone in the forum that I believe that the WL has to do with more of an interest thing than anything else. My stats are relatively low for a top 50 university, but I got accepted. Why? I visited many times, did a student for a day, and had an amazing interview. When reading my application, they believed I would attend if accepted, rather than the other thousands with higher stats. For one college, I only visited once, and decided to apply. I was waitlisted along with other colleges that I didnt visit nearly as much as I should have.
What really stinks about this is what happens to those who are unable to visit and demonstrate their interest. Some schools offer skype interviews, while others do not.
As someone else mentioned, colleges are just as confused as we are frustrated. I believe they waitlist people because they do not know who will attend if accepted, considering that people these days apply to 10-20 schools.
@BU871820
I stand corrected- Bucknell was not removed from the rankings, but others were. But the mis-reporting of score data went on for 7 years at Bucknell
At least I won’t have to worry about paying for college in the future if I never even get in lol
@gardenstategal, how did Colby deal with over enrollment; did doubles become triples - that would be a troubling residential life outcome.
I think we are in a period right now where kids and their parents are being told over and over to include a mix of reach, target and safety schools and it only takes adding 1-2 more to each bucket and the traditional 9 applications becomes 15 - that’s what my twin DD’s did, and while it hasn’t changed the predicted results at the super reach level, it does give them some great target choices and most importantly doesn’t leave them w/o choices as they had great safety acceptances as well. They were only waitlisted at a couple of reaches and only one target, whether they applied together or individually, so they haven’t been subjected to the WL vortex, but the denials still hurt the same as they always have…
@Chembiodad , I can’t answer your question with absolute certainty. There are a couple of things they are doing that may have come about from that year or may have been expanded.
- A group of freshmen enter in the school's programs in France or Spain for their first semester. Second semester, more juniors are away, so there is more housing. (Middlebury has spring admits, Bard has a Berlin entry. Not unusual but for many schools, necessary. )
- A small number of upperclassmen are allowed to live off campus. 100 maybe.
- They are building some housing in the city of Waterville but it's not done. This is part of a very interesting collaboration between the town and school.
- About 150 sophomores do not pick their housing in the draw but get assigned over the summer to whatever is left after all freshmen are housed.
- I don't think they have made doubles into triples; they aren't big enough! It's possible, though, that in the past, triple rooms may have been allowed to be doubles, and that doesn't seem to happen.
They are making it work, but they are also making sure they are within their limits.
As an aside, I don’t think the schools are “fighting for a lower acceptance rate” as much as they want the best students for their institution aND they don’t want to be reliant on one geographic region or one socioeconomic group… I believe all of the NESCAC schools, particularly the northernmost ones, may have come a bit late to the diversity game in some measure because they could fill their beds with strong students regardless and in part because theIR remote locations coupled with their traditional prep school base made them less inviting than many other excellent colleges. The dropping of essays and shift in testing policies is aimed at reaching beyond their traditional base. And as frustrating as it is to many here, it is working. Change does not come quickly, and it takes work - especially in schools that have and enjoy a lot of traditions. Getting students to apply, then convincing them to attend, and then making an inclusive community requires effort. We’re seeing what the front end of that looks like.
your point on admits from waitlist not counted as part of yield or admit rates is an important one and correct. However, I am not yet convinced its driving the decision making. Doing so would create a great deal of uncertainty that Admission offices generally hate. I would look at if percentage of ED students as to entire freshman class is moving up as perhaps creating downward pressure on RD admit rates (for those that have ED). If you go back in time and look at percentage of freshman classes that came from a WL the results are all over the map. one year BC had 30% of freshman class from WL and the next ~8%. But I agree that WL seems more prevalent this year. unfortunately we won’t really know a good reason why for 1-2 years. But the more people talk about the more students will pursue ED route and if ED applications keep growing then schools will likely keep expanding it as percentage of freshman class BUT this should then reduce RA applicants but create more fear for those RA applicants to apply to more schools and round and round we go.
BC has always used the WL to accept students. Maybe to help rankings or maybe they’ve been burned too many times by too many deposits as of May 2nd. But over the years you get better at having a smaller WL.
Yes, anytime Colby or anyone brings in a new Enrollment Management person, they usually work on improving rankings and there are several ways to do it: increase apps, increase WL to get sure deposits in early May, etc.
The other issue is the number of kids graduating US high schools has been on decline for a while and the % of those kids opting to go to college has declined. Why international students must help make up the numbers and especially the numbers of full payers because more and more American kids need more and more aid to attend ridiculously high cost to attend a Univ in the US.
Ability to pay is always an issue because you have a certain financial aid budget and you cannot ‘blow it’ or you’ve spent too much of the university’s money and after a few years of this, you’re shown the door.
If you use the WL then you can see what financial aid you have left, often very little, and why in the end so many full payers end up getting off the WL compared to others.
“If you use the WL then you can see what financial aid you have left, often very little, and why in the end so many full payers end up getting off the WL compared to others.”
Yes, some schools are up front about this (in the wait list acceptance it says no FA will be given), others more sneaky. For need blind schools, especially small LACs, this could be a big reason for using the WL.
I do not think WL is either soft or nice. It is a way to attract more full pay students.
@suzyQ7 @lauren887 interesting because my friend’s son was WL at Case. Last night got notified that he’s still on the waitlist, but if he’s admitted he will receive a double digit scholarship. I thought it was very odd.
@NJWrestlingmom last year, my D was taken off a waitlist on May 3rd, with merit aid. I suspect that if a college offers merit aid in the first place, the first kids called off WL might be offered merit as an incentive. They were quite likely in the pile of accepted students that had to be reduced.
Daughter
Rejected - Middlebury, Colby, Vassar
Waitlist - Smith, Skidmore, Kenyon (only school did not visit, but did interview) Hamilton
Accepted - U-Mass honors, Saint Michael’s, Emerson, Mt. Holyoke, HWS, Wheaton ( MA )
She only took a wail list spot at one school because she preferred one acceptance over those three.
Can other share how many wait list they plan to accept?
@Akqj10, my twin DD’s will accept a couple between the two.
Both may accept waitlist at Middlebury, and the one that applied with accept waitlist at Wesleyan. Overall, they did very well, and while they had a pile of Denials, they got acceptances at Bates, Carleton, Colby, Colgate, Hamilton, Kenyon and Oberlin.
We continue to hear from everyone that it was a tougher year than last; don’t know if that’s true or just feels that way…