<p>I know this is a little premature, and I could very well be counting my chicks before they hatch, but I had a question about waitlists and a few of my colleges have specific information on them. I was waitlisted to quite a few schools, but only one of them is getting back to me within the next few weeks. If I accept their admissions offer, am I then forbidden to accept an admission offer (off another waitlist) that could come in later, say in June?</p>
<p>Also, how long do you generally have to make a decision about responding to an admission offer (off the waitlist)?</p>
<p>You will have to pay a non-refundable deposit to get off the wait list. As long as you realize you will forfeit this, it is fine to accept a spot off a different wait list. </p>
<p>Let’s say each school has a $500 deposit. You put your deposit down at school A but got accepted off the waitlist at school B. You put your deposit down at school B and forfeited your school A deposit. Then school C accepts you so you accept a spot there and forfeit the school B deposit.</p>
<p>That’s $1500. If you have the money, then by all means go for it. I wish you the best of luck!</p>
<p>The other posters are correct, but I hope you realize that many waitlists are that in name only. It’s one of the scandals of college admissions. It used to be for the kids that were right on the cusp of getting in, that the colleges wanted to take them, and would if they just had some more room. The waitlist let the college hit their target enrollment. These days colleges put huge numbers of kids on the waitlist. Since there is no standard of practice in college admissions for who goes on the list, colleges realize they could send out a useful signal by putting lots of kids on the list. I it’s a useful signal to the college because it encourages future applicants. It has nothing to do with serving the needs of those on the list. This is why you are on so many lists. Frankly, most kids are not going to get offers from any of their lists. I hope you are a happy exception, but I think you are worrying about a problem you are not likely to see.</p>
<p>to put some numbers out as an example so you understand the odds - Duke waitlisted 3,382 students in 2011, a number that is about twice the size of the number of places they have for frosh. In other words to empty the waitlist every single person accepted would have to decline, and so would the entire set accepted from the waitlist to replace them. Of course Duke has no illusions this will happen; in 2010 they took a grand total of 60.</p>
<p>It was, however, a good move on Duke’s part to have 3,382 kids out there spreading the word at their HS that they are waitlisted at Duke. If 2 or 3 kids at each HS say to themselves “Sally got waitlisted and my stats are similar, maybe even a bit better; I think I can get in!” then Duke gets a bump in the number of students that applied, making it even more selective and boosting its desirability.</p>
<p>And to mikemac, I fully understand the rarity of such an occurrence, but it was something I still was wondering about. Thank you for your insight :)</p>
<p>When my DD got off the waitlist, we had only 4 or 5 days to accept it or not. She was called on a Thursday afternoon, we bought the air ticket to fly over on the weekend to travel on Monday to look at the school as admitted student, by Tuesday, we had to make a decision to put down the deposit right there and than.</p>
<p>Do not count on the “getting back to you” promises, you either is in or not. And when you get in then you can talk about it. Don’t even raise the hope because they write to you. In my DD’s class, they took off 14 students off the list out of 1000’s.</p>