<p>@canhazphysics Apparently the yield last year was 40%, which isn’t too bad. They accepted 3,539 total students, which means around 1415.6 students enrolled. Then they enrolled 100 on the waitlist (out of 2,892 who accepted their spots on the waitlist).</p>
<p>Man, the stats are not in our favor. And I’m nowhere near as smart as most of the folks here who were waitlisted (or even rejected). :(</p>
<p>Yea, I’ve been going through these numbers. Didn’t realize a place like Chicago would have such a low yield, or that 40% would ever be considered large. It’s terrifying that over 2000 students will need to decline the offer for the waitlistees to be considered. Going through these threads, it just seems like Chicago’s gaining popularity incessantly. Will that many really decline? Will there be that many MIT/Stan/Ivy cross-admits?</p>
<p>I was happy for the first two days after the result, but then I took an arrow to the knee.</p>
<p>Yeah, I was thrilled at first (and I’m still pretty happy, because I don’t think I deserve to be on the waitlist, lol), but what little hope I had is fading. :/</p>
<p>Let’s just hope a lot of people are declining, because I’d much rather be at UChicago than at a school literally five minutes from my house.</p>
<p>^ I am in the EXACT same position. I think being waitlisted just makes me realize how much more I love UChicago. I hope all those accepted kids understand what kids like us would do to get their slots!</p>
<p>@coruscating I don’t mean to quibble but that 3539 was the final admissions number INCLUDING students taken from the waitlist (that jives with enrollment figures the University has released for the first-year class.)</p>
<p>[Waitlists:</a> What to Do if You’ve Been Placed on a Waitlist](<a href=“http://collegeapps.about.com/od/theartofgettingaccepted/f/waitlist_faq.htm]Waitlists:”>What to Do if You've Been Placed on a College Waitlist)</p>
<p>@truth123: Ahh, that makes sense. I was wondering why that would add up to ~1,500 rather than ~1,400. D’oh.</p>
<p>I emailed J. Nondorf (the regional rep and Dean of Admissions) and he was very prompt in getting back to me:</p>
<p>"Thank you, [name], for the very thoughtful e-mail. I do appreciate it (and your patience).</p>
<p>As to the waitlist, there is nothing you need/should do (other than accept a spot on it – which you have done, and send your officer an e-mail – and this one certainly counts). The waitlist is not ordered/ranked and at this time, I do not know if we will take students from the waitlist or how many we will be able to offer admission. If we do, it typically occurs in late April and early May and all decisions are final by June.</p>
<p>I do hope it all works out and thank you once again for your kind words about the university.</p>
<p>All the best,</p>
<p>Jim</p>
<p>Too hard to tell - AFAIK Chicago doesn’t release data on the # waitlist offers. I doubt they will. See this:</p>
<p>[College</a> waitlists: using last year’s statistics to predict this year’s odds of admittance ? Ellen Richards Educational Services](<a href=“http://www.ellenrichardseducationalservices.com/college-admissions/college-waitlists-using-last-years-statistics-to-predict-this-years-odds-of-admittance/]College”>http://www.ellenrichardseducationalservices.com/college-admissions/college-waitlists-using-last-years-statistics-to-predict-this-years-odds-of-admittance/)</p>
<p>Notice that the schools with historically lower yields often waitlist very high numbers of students, like JHU (3700), Cornell (2600), CMU (4500), Dartmouth (1800), and Emory (3100). Some of them are equal or nearly equal to the # students they accepted in the first place. Notice that Yale and Stanford, which have high yields, had 996 and 999 students on the waitlist, even though Yale has a much smaller class; that makes sense because its yield is about 6% lower. Princeton, which has a yield 10-14% lower than the other two, placed 1,451 on the waitlist despite having the same class size as Yale. Finally, notice that often even those with larger waitlists usually don’t accept more students off them than the students with smaller waitlists. It’s a way to increase yield by gauging student interest, and many of the schools with lower yields (like WashU, Tufts, Vanderbilt) don’t release the # waitlists. I think that’s partly why Harvard doesn’t release the # waitlists - they don’t want the world to see that they engage in as much yield protection as some of their peers do. My guestimate on the # waitlist offers from Chicago is 3,500+.</p>
<p>One interesting statistic would be a “waitlist yield” - not the # waitlisted students who enrolled after being taken off the waitlist, but the # students who accepted a spot on the waitlist out of all waitlist offers. That would be a proxy for how much the university is using the waitlist to gauge student interest and improve yield. It would make sense that if a student didn’t accept a spot on JHU’s waitlist, it’s often (though not always) because he got into a comparable or better school, and if his best option is a lower-ranked school, he’d probably accept a spot on the waitlist (even if he doesn’t end up enrolling).</p>
<p>If the numbers stated before are right, Chicago’s “waitlist yield” would be 70%, which is much, much better than Chicago’s “overall yield.” (Compared to the yield of some previous years, that’s 2x the proportion!)</p>