<p>Thanks, collegebound. Interesting info. Out of the 500 or so that you predict accept a spot, do you have any estimates of the number of those that actually bother to send in a letter, et cetera?</p>
<p>Neutralnuke, if someone went back on a "yes" over the telephone, that would probably be akin to going back on an early decision committment. These schools are serious about their yield, and if that person went to another insitution after promising the admissions committee that he would matriculate, they would not be happy. I'm sure his school would suffer the consequences.</p>
<p>Just about the phone call thing: When I called lately, the AO told me that they can not give decisions over the phone. (No I did not ask for my standing ;) but how WL decisions are given to the applicants.) Then again, she wasn't too sure about the whole procedure. </p>
<p>On the other hand side, they don't give you decisions if they call but only ask you for your interest. Nevertheless for someone like me with a 6 hour time gap, it seems pretty awkward that they call in the middle of the night. Not that I cared - it would be fantastic - but they would have a tough time catching someone with 10 hours + time gap.</p>
<p>They would never say they give decisions over the phone. What most of the ivy leagues do, and probably all is that a regional admission officer makes a casual call and says I have great news for you, and tells them they have been offered a place off the waitlist, and explains that there are many whow would love to be offered a place and gets a strong indication if they will definitely come there. Perhaps they are told that the school would love for them to come but if they cannot commit that the spot would be offered to someone else.
As for expressing interest, here is what really has to be done. I would do all of the following:
1) Write a letter to the Dean of Admissions expressing your disappointment in being waitlisted and expressing your interest in being offered admission. Tell them you will definitely come if accepted.
2) Write a letter to the regional admission officer saying the same thing.
You can summarize what you believe you have to offer the school communituy.
4) Tell your guidance counselor that you would definitely go if offered a place off the waitlist. It would be terrible if instead of calling you first, the regional admission officer called your guidance counselor to see how interested you were and your guidance counselor was unaware of your interest and told the school so.
On a psychological note you have to decide how long you are willing to hold out hopint to get in. Waitlist spots are usually given in two rounds. The first group taking place in mid May and the second group later in the summer. Do you want to go so badly over your other choices that you are willing to wait until the last minuite to get accepted, or if you dont hear by the end of May do you want to psych yourself up for where you have committed to go and forgo your spot on the waitlist</p>
<p>I know this probably goes without saying but,</p>
<p>I talked to my regional director, and she said that it's a good (recommended) idea to send in that letter of interest with updates about activities/awards. Also have your counselor send in your third quarter grades. </p>
<p>I'm waitlisted at Wharton. Good luck to all.</p>
<p>does anyone know when we can find out how many waitlist spots there are (if any) and how many people applied to be on the waitlist?
My estimate would be May 7th. If it is postmarked by May 1st, the reply cards ought to be in by that date, imo.</p>
<p>You can call your regional admission officer and ask. They are probably figuring out now how many accepted the offer of admission and how many spots there are left. If they underestimated the number of students who would accept the offer of admission there may be no spots left. I imagine that there will be spots and the number could be anywhere between 30 and 100 with anywhere from 80-300 being offerred admission (it seems that about 1/3 accept) The spots will not be evenly spread by schools. Also there are some who may get the advantage of being offered a spot first because of the need for geographical diversity, more representation by a particular under represented minority, or I imagine important development admits who were already compelling candidates.</p>
<p>How certain are you of the 80-300 number? That seems a little high. You think that that many people who send in their waitlist card would then turn down admission?</p>
<p>What I mean is this. Last year 30 were taken off the waitlist. The year before 100 were. They dont just ask 30 to get 30. They have to ask about 80-90 to get 30 who will say yes. So if there are 100 spots they may ask about 300. Even though many have sent in letters, by the time they contact students many have decided to stay with their decision, or got into another school they were on the waitlist for, or are waiting on another school they are waitlisted at and would rather go to.
There were I believe 4% of applicants who were placed on the waitlist. I dont recall the number of total applicants, but therer are probably at least 1,000 who were asked to be on the waitlist. Possibly more. Assuming 1,000, about half choose to stay on the waitlist. That means 500 on the waitlist. If ther were 50 spots offered from the waitlist they might ask abou 100-150 if they want them.</p>
<p>I assume that they really sort out the ones who do not show interest before they call. One UofC representative wrote that they only take a person off the wait list if they are sure s/he will attend.</p>
<p>I can't imagine that this process is so vague that 2/3 reject an offer. You are right: There are some who won't come, who decide to stay or have another offer but we are talking about Penn here - there are possibly 10 - 12 universities in the country which are (to some people) more attractive and it seems highly unlikely that you are offered a spot there off the wait list and at Penn.</p>
<p>If you said 175 are called for 100 spots, I could believe it but 300? That's nearly a coin flip chance. Not that I don't like the idea but to me it simply isn't realistic...</p>
<p>If there were 100 wait list spots the year before and 30 last year, that means that this year they may be over-enrolled by -40 and they might not take anyone from the waitlist. Penn seems to be getting more desirable by the year so they may have underestimated the yield (could be the other way, but you can't say just because they took 100 two years ago it may go back up to that again - that's ancient history in admissions and it was significantly harder to get in this year than it was two years ago.) So the bottom end of your range is really zero and not 80. I don't think they'll make anywhere close to 300 offers even informally. If they waitlist 4%, I think they had something like 22000 applications so that would be 880 but actually I think they waitlisted closer to 1500 last year - where did you get 4% from? I realize you want to hold out a thread of hope but it's not useful to fool yourself by making the most optimistic possible assumptions one on top of the other until suddenly you have a 50-50 chance of getting off the waitlist.</p>
<p>I wonder if 1500 students were offered the waitlist, not 1500 accepted. I know my D was waitlisted, and did add her name to the list, but would probably not accept if she were offered a spot. I would think that the only possibility of her accepting admissions off the waitlist would be if they called in May. She has accepted a spot at University of South Carolina, since they are ranked #1 for Intl. Business. I'm sure there are others in her position who accepted offers elsewhere and are now excited about their school of choice.</p>
<p>The letter said 4% waitlisted. The school said that typically half accept the waitlist offer. There is no way to know if there will be no spots or about 50 or more. Penn usually has waitlist spots because there are always those who are going to choose HYP ect over it or aother school of similar ranking/prestige ect or other schools. Because they are a bigger sized school they will have some spots. They want to offer the waitlist spots to those they know will say yes this they have to report thte actual offer for yield purposes. This is why they call first before sending an acceptance package or offer</p>
<p>and last year they were supposedly being more conservative because of the housing shortage for class of 09. they pretty much know how many people will accept.</p>