Waitlist Movement

Parents Forum
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<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."</p>

<p>Since none of them are truly need-blind to begin with (and only a very small fraction even claim to be so - as ID notes, they all do have a budget and they are held accountable for meeting it), I don't see what the big deal is. Some years they end up without the basketball center and need a tall one, other years an extra trombone player. And they don't usually keep tabs on those they are sure will come if accepted off the waitlist - no one tells them that they weren't accepted anywhere else, or only got into their safety school, so it is a very elaborate mating ritual.</p>

<p>Centuries ago, I got in off the waiting list. I don't quite know why. It then came as quite a shock to attend and find that I was academically more capable (or at least my grades said so) than 90% of the rest of the student body. I just hadn't fit into their "plans" the first time around.</p>

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<p>The delighted daughter of a friend was recently accepted off the waitlist for Loyola Maryland. Still on the waitlist for Villanova, but VERY happy with Loyola.</p>

23

<p>Friend of family just got off waitlist and is going to Cornell.</p>

24

<p>
[quote]
I was a bit too brusque in my post.

[/quote]
jamimom, your post didn't strike me as brusque, not to worry!</p>

<p>We have now mastered the challenge of investing emotional energy into vigorously pursuing a wait list and simultaneously looking into gap years. For us it has been sort of comparable to rubbing our stomachs and patting our heads at the same time. Or perhaps more accurately, chewing gum and walking at the same time. </p>

<p>Anyway, I guess it's good to hear that others are now getting off wait lists because I'm sure there's a domino effect. </p>

<p>And what about the OP's question? Did it seem that the wait lists were moving earlier last year?</p>

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<p>My daughter is on 5 waitlists. Of the waitlists shes on, it seems that only one person has posted from one of the colleges only, that they got in (by e-mail). About a month ago, I did a college conf archive search on all these colleges, and its seems that last yr people heard by the 2nd week of May. Also its surprising to me, all the colleges that seem to have closed their waitlist, and are not taking anyone.</p>

<p>With kids applying to so many colleges, how can that be? Or are all the kids gravitating to the same colleges. And specially in my daughter case, we are talking about tier 2 schools, not Ivys. I dont understand it at all....</p>

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<p>lmm,
I just think that the extreme pressure on the upper tier has also resulted in downward pressure on the almost-upper-tier & even just below that. A parent posted awhile ago -- I think a Dad -- on his child applying ED to Boston College, & some similar students in the Northeast also doing so, I believe. These were students who possibly just 2-3 yrs ago would have been accepted to an Ivy or top LAC (& possibly would be in the running also this yr). They could see the Handwriting on the Wall this yr & wanted to secure a place in some solid, competitive college, knowing what the competition was in their region, & <em>from</em> their region; they wanted to take no chances. Same with many schools in the Mid-Atlantic & MidWest. We know a student with a 3.8/1400+ who was not accepted to UT out of state, although UT was recruiting very upper-level students from out of state.</p>

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<p>Andi, you have been terrific. And, yes, I am often a bit brusque on posts because I tend to respond to the content of the post and forget the particular situation of the poster or who may be reading the post. It's because of my "hit and run" way that I use CC. I go back and forth from other computer work to CC. More than a few times I have just given an opinion, comment or fact without going into the niceties.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
We know a student with a 3.8/1400+ who was not accepted to UT out of state, although UT was recruiting very upper-level students from out of state.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Just for the benefit of next year's applicants: my sense is that applying to somebody else's top-rated state university is one of the worst admissions "values" around. The out-of-state competition at the better public universities is fierce and there is a signficant discrepancy in stats between out-of-state accepted students and in-state acceptances. For example, out-of-state at places like UVa, Berkeley, and UMich can be as difficult as admissions at the top tier of private colleges (Duke, Brown, Williams, etc.)</p>

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<p>I agree, I'Dad (about O-O-S). However, UT specifically solicited my D, & kind of late in the RD cycle. And given the disparity I've seen between profiles for UT in-staters vs. profiles for <em>UC</em> in-staters, the UT bar would appear to be not nearly as high as it is for UC. I agree with putting UVA & UMich along with UC for oos'ers, but I don't know that I would agree with the UT comparison. (99% of non-URM in-staters accepted to UCBerkeley are in the top 10% of their h.s. class; those are stats, not a guess, btw. I don't think the same can be said of UT, from the profiles I read, & from people currently residing or who have recently lived in TX.)</p>

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<p>It's very difficult to figure out the chances at select OOS colleges. The schools often will not give out the stats necessary to come up with any conclusions. I have tried on occaision with UVA and W&M. The problem is that the number of OOS applicant too often includes athletic, legacy and other special interest kids to be able to gauge what the chances are for someone who is an excellent student but does not fall into those categories. Any breakdowns you get are too often regarding the whole school population, not the OOS kids. With UT and the UC schools, I don't think a whole lot of kids apply OOS. The lack of numbers make it even more difficult to come to any guidelines. Michigan and Wisconsin, however, seem to be more generous than any of the OOS schools I have mentioned.</p>

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<p>Here are the stats for the Fall '99 entering class at UVa. </p>

<p>There are taken from a report, "Preferences at the Univeristy of Virginia: Racial and Ethnic Preferences in Undergraduate Admissions, 1996 and 1999", by Lerner and Nagai. You can find a link to the Word Doc of the report at:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.ceousa.org/va2.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ceousa.org/va2.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>For each category below, I've listed the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentile SAT scores for both in-state and out-of-state.</p>

<p>These are the stats for the accepted class, not the enrolled class. The data was received on computer disc from UVa as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request under the implied threat of a lawsuit.</p>

<p>As you can see, the out-of-state numbers (especially for whites and Asians) are off the charts.</p>

<p>SAT Math:</p>

<p>White -- In: 620/670/710 -- Out: 680/720/760
Asian -- In: 650/695/740 -- Out: 710/750/790
Hispanic -- In: 597/620/690 -- Out: 630/680/720
Black -- In: 520/580/620 -- Out: 550/610/660 </p>

<p>SAT Verbal:</p>

<p>White -- In: 620/670/720 -- Out: 660/710/750
Asian -- In: 600/650/710 -- Out: 660/710/750
Hispanic -- In: 600/650/700 -- Out: 620/670/710
Black -- In: 530/590/640 -- Out: 565/610/650 </p>

<p>Those are very sobering numbers. My D had William & Mary out-of-state on her preliminary list. My hunch is that it would have been the most challenging school on her list from an admissions standpoint. Poor "admissions value".</p>

<p>In a similar vein, a photo copy of the numeric admissions worksheet used by UMich prior to the Supreme Court case was published. I ran my daughter's transcript and stats through it at the time. She was borderline out-of-state "auto-admit", depending on how many points they gave for her EC. Most likely, she would not have had enough points for an auto-admit. I think it would be very conceivable to get into Swarthmore, Williams, or Amherst and NOT get accepted to UMich or UVa out of state.</p>

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<p>Interesteddad, you don't happen to have the Michigan stats handy, do you?</p>

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<p>"Most likely, she would not have had enough points for an auto-admit. I think it would be very conceivable to get into Swarthmore, Williams, or Amherst and NOT get accepted to UMich or UVa out of state."</p>

<p>I think this is already happening with UCLA/Berkeley and the lower Ivies/LACs for IN-STATE California students at top prep schools with high (but not top) SATs and middling class ranks.</p>

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<p>No Michigan data.</p>

<p>This anti-affirmative action lobby organization filed freedom of information act requests with a number of state universities. UVa was the only one that handed them a computer disc with their full applicant, acceptee, and enrollee data and was the only one that provided in-state and out-of-state data. According to the lobby group (it's Linda Chavez' organization), Virginia's state attornies basically told UVa that they would lose any anti-affirmative case, so UVa was particularly co-operative.</p>

<p>They didn't need to infer racial preferences in the Michigan Supreme Court case because it was printed in black and white on the admissions worksheet. URM's received an additional 10 point bonus, based solely on ethnicity, on a work sheet where something like 90 to 100 points was an auto-admit. I believe that in-state also received the 10 point bonus. It was de facto racial preference and the courts forced UMich to change the system.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
I think this is already happening with UCLA/Berkeley and the lower Ivies/LACs for IN-STATE California students at top prep schools with high (but not top) SATs and middling class ranks.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>That may be indicative of a flaw in the admissions systems at large publics. Because of the sheer size, they have to be numbers driven. They may lack the mechanism for evaluating class rank viz-a-viz the particular high school. For example, #2 rank at my D's school may well be most comparable to #100 (or whatever) at Exeter. But, in a purely numbers driven system, that kind of judgement may not happen. </p>

<p>That's what concerned me about the Virginia schools out-of-state. An app that relies on "intangibles" may not get the careful reading at a very large school.</p>

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<p>interesteddad--Michigan is much easier to get into out-of-state than UVa, Berkeley, UCLA, UNC, or even UCSD. It's actually pretty easy if you have the stats. For example, for me UVa was a match/reach but Michigan was the safest school to which I applied. Mich is on the level of some private universities in terms of selectivity--Emory, Vanderbilt, Colgate, etc. but it is definitely not as hard to get into as Brown, Duke, or Williams--not even close. Regardless, it is an amazing institution.</p>

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<p>neither MIT nor Caltech are going to the WL, as far as I know</p>

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<p>"That may be indicative of a flaw in the admissions systems at large publics. Because of the sheer size, they have to be numbers driven. They may lack the mechanism for evaluating class rank viz-a-viz the particular high school. For example, #2 rank at my D's school may well be most comparable to #100 (or whatever) at Exeter. But, in a purely numbers driven system, that kind of judgement may not happen.."</p>

<p>Maybe. But it is just as possible that the opposite is the case. Many (not all) of the lower ranking students at the best privates have all the benefits of money going for them. Provide those same inputs to the #2 (or #20) at the public, and the latter might in fact be much better academically equipped.</p>

<p>(Come on, ID, we went to the same school back in the Dark Ages - I'm sure you remember the kids who finished next to last in their class at Phillips whatever, and were only there 'cause they didn't get i to Princeton. It's not a poor division of labor/capital either - said kid probably couldn't hack it at UCLA with its steep bell-curve grading anyway, whereas at Billsville he'd be fair to middlin'.)</p>

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<p>I'Dad,
Well, once again ---> I'm glad you're giving all of us stats on UVA, but I'm not sure who you're arguing with here. I wasn't comparing UVA with anything. I was comparing UT with UC. At UT Austin, the top 10% of Texas seniors in their class are <em>guaranteed</em> admission to UTA. That is not true for Berkeley. You have a good shot at it, but you may get kicked out in the Comprehensive Review if you lack the demonstrated motivation to attend Berkeley.</p>

<p>The person that I mentioned did not apply to UVA or UMich, precisely because she was aware of their higher bar than that of UT.</p>

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<p>Epiphany:</p>

<p>Jamimom had said that she had looked for the out-of-state stats at the Virginia schools. I had them, so I posted them. That's all.</p>

<p>I found the numbers to be eye-opening because the dramatic difference between the overall published "stats" for UVa and the stats for out-of-state.</p>