<p>If memory serves me well (and it doesn't always) it seems that by this time last year there was a lot more action from waitlists being reported. I'm wondering if there is less going to the waitlist, or if there are fewer of this year's posters who accepted positions on waitlists.</p>
<p>Northwestern indicated in an e-mail to my D that it would be after 6/1 before they begin looking at the Wait List and since it is by Department there may be spaces depending on the housing depositis that are due in the next week. She did not accept her place on the CMU priority WL. As it stands now she turned down USC, UCSD, CSF and paid deposits at Northeastern.</p>
<p>Davidson's waitlist is closed - I got a letter yesterday that the class has been filled.</p>
<p>Apparently Tufts' yield this year was better than expected. They won't be taking anyone off the waitlist.</p>
<p>lalady we've been hearing the same sorts of reports also. That wait lists are closed or that there has been 'very little movement' toward the wait list.
It's puzzling to me since some kids apply to so very many schools. You'd think there would be more places available. Or perhaps it just the watched pot syndrome.</p>
<p>A friend of d's was offered a spot from Brown's waitlist earlier this week.</p>
<p>There was a big article in the LA Times yesterday about how waitlists are the instance in which many schools are not need blind. They are more likely to pick kids needing little or no aid when choosing from the waitlist. They would like to give aid to those kids, but the finaid budget is often tapped out by time they get to the waitlist.</p>
<p>oh well, there go the rest of our chances.</p>
<p>Coureur, I think that might be the case for some schools, but it was not our case when my daughter got off the waitlist at Swat. In fact, she got over $24,000 in over-all aid as I was a single mom at the time. I think it must vary by school. I think those with decent endowments are looking more for filling the needs of certain departments and trying to balance out the class, but our experience was with only one school. Fingers still crossed, dear Andi.</p>
<p>andi,
But wouldn't you think that the gap between enrollment acceptances and enrollment offers equals nearly the same number of cross-admits to those colleges? (Before ever having to dip into wait lists) It seems to me that the most desired U's are mostly "trading" among each other between April and May. No?</p>
<p>Just heard this past week two of S's friends got off the waitlists and into Vanderbilt and Washington U in St Louis.The Vandy kid is definitely taking the offer..he was going to go to SUNY Bingamton(spelling?).The Wash U kid is wavering,his deposit had gone to UNC-CH,though Wash U had been his first choice.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>Coureur, I think that might be the case for some schools<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Sure, the article said it varies by school, and it also varies by year. Some schools get less need blind at waitlist time in some years than others depending on how much money they've got left in the finaid budget. And some schools (such as the UCs) don't even have waitlists.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>But wouldn't you think that the gap between enrollment acceptances and enrollment offers equals nearly the same number of cross-admits to those colleges?<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Yes, but the colleges already know from many years experience what percentage of the cross-admits they can expect to "win", and thus increase their offers in the RD round to cover the gap. They use the waitlist only to fill in around the edges of any surprises or miscalculations in their actual yield.</p>
<p>LA Times article:
<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-me-waitlist20may20,1,2632038.story?coll=la-news-learning&ctrack=1&cset=true%5B/url%5D">http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-me-waitlist20may20,1,2632038.story?coll=la-news-learning&ctrack=1&cset=true</a></p>
<p>Excerpt:</p>
<p>College Waiting Lists Can Favor the Well-Off
As the clock ticks and financial aid gets short, private schools often select wealthier students.
By Stuart Silverstein
Times Staff Writer</p>
<p>May 20, 2005</p>
<p>Many high school seniors dangling on college waiting lists and still hoping to land fall-term openings at their top-choice schools will instead get a lesson in real-world economics: It pays to be rich.</p>
<p>Selective private colleges acknowledge that they sometimes take affluent teens over those from poor or middle-class families needing financial aid when deciding which students to admit from their waiting lists.</p>
<p>The reason, college administrators say, is that financial aid budgets often have been tapped out by the time those admissions are decided in May and June. The money has been allocated to students admitted earlier whom the schools most wanted to attract, rather than the backup choices typically relegated to the waiting list.....</p>
<p>I do know that Swat says that finaid will be the same if you're accepted off the wait list as it otherwise would have been. I just figured from the LA article that it might yet be another example of where official policy is different from what goes on behind closed doors. I suspect that coureur's next post is pretty accurate- it must depend on what's left in the finaid budget for the given year.<br>
Momofthree it's good to know that your d did in fact get that generous aid after being wait listed. That must have been one happy moment!</p>
<p>I don't know what kind of financial aid Swat has for waitlists. The question often is not whether your financial aid will be the same if you're accepted off the wait list but whether you will get off the waitlist if you need financial aid. Some schools that are need blind for regular adimissions are not need blind for transfers or waitlisted kids. By the time the school gets to the waitlist, the funds are depleted and the adcoms and financial aid folks don't want to go back and forth at this stage of the game. They just accept those who don't need an aid package.</p>
<p>Andi, we all keeping our fingers crossed for your S. I know Smith has taken some folks off the waitlist and they have gotten finaid. Unfortunately, that doesn't help your son.
Ellen</p>
<p>Andi, I was a bit too brusque in my post. Did not mean it to come out that way at all. Also want to tell you that I do know a young lady who cleared the Swarthmore waitlist late in the process. She was all set to go elsewhere and she received notification. No idea what the story will be this year. And my son cleared his waitlist in August several years ago. He was pretty much packed and psyched to go to his college, and turned down Cornell. This was after he was given the option to there midyear with satisfactory first term grades. So things do change over the summer. But make some plans for a great year elsewhere--do not hang onto wait list hopes. I truly believe that your son would be a hot transfer prospect with the additional year to hone into his interests. Or taking a gap year would also only help his odds; the selective schools just love gap years, from what I can see. Not just platitudes here, Andi, I do mean everything I say. I know several kids who are already looking at transfer prospects, yet they are are getting excited about the plans for the year. It may be an opportunity to try out a school in some exotic, unusual or backwood locale that adds a whole new dimension to the resume.</p>
<p>Swarthmore's need-blind policy is as close to honest as you will find. Specifically, the finanicial aid office has standing authorization from the Board of Managers to increase the aid budget as necessary to meet the need of the students.</p>
<p>Now, I'm not naive enough to think that there isn't a budget and that they don't manage admissions to achieve that target. They would be insane not to. However, if they tally up the class and need a couple hundred grand to meet the need, they are authorized to spend it.</p>
<p>That spending authorization is the true meaning of a "need-blind" admissions policy.</p>
<p>BTW, I don't think clearing the waitlist in mid to late summer is terribly unusual. I would guess that's when colleges find that a few freshmen have opted to defer enrollment for a year.</p>
<p>A friend of my daughter's was recently accepted from the wait list at St. Olaf's.</p>
<p>Don't you think that the question of whether to take a student who needs
fin aid or who doesn't off the wait list depends on whether they have
maxed out their fin aid this year? It seems to me that if a school is
down on their percentage of fin aid students this year they might try
to up their numbers and take fin aid students. If they are over their
targeted fin aid they will not look for those students because they do
not have fin aid left to give them. Same way they plug holes with a
tuba player if they need one or a swimmer if they need one. I would
expect this. The other issue they face is that they obviously only
want to offer spots to waitlisted students who are going to take them.
If they offer a student who needs substantial fin aid a spot they will
then have to go through the process to see if that student will be able
to get the fin aid and then attend. It just doesn't sound like schools
want to take the risk of choosing students off their wait lists that may
not come and lower their yield.</p>