GW is my top school but financial aid is something important while making my decision, which is why I didn’t apply ED. However, I ended up being waitlisted. A lot of my friends have gotten waitlisted at other schools and they tell me the only way that you’ll get off of it is donating and having strong pulls. Is that true? What can I do to show GW that I am truly interested?
My oldest son was W/L at several top tier schools. After depositing at a safety, he called each school to speak with his admissions rep to understand why he was waitlisted to ensure he was actually a competitive candidate and not just a polite rejection, and he then accepted spots on the 3 of the WL. He wrote notes to each school explaining how he hoped to get in and briefly reiterated his qualifications. In the interim, he won a state-level writing award. He sent that, along with his (excellent) 3rd quarter grades, and a LOR from someone who supervised him in a volunteer assignment to each school. Two of the schools did not use the WL that year. One did - and he was admitted. Make an effort and hope…
I agree with Pre. Some schools are using WLs a lot more aggressively this year to manage yields and revenue. But in most cases it will be difficult to tell which ones, until the data comes in next year. Those are excellent suggestions in Pre’s post.