<p>Recently waitlisted at WashU.
What can you do?
Does visiting, sending materials, interviewing help?</p>
<p>Post any and all waitlist success stories here!</p>
<p>There has to be some hope (even if I am 1/9348938493489894893849893 people)</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>You can write a letter promising to enroll if accepted, and also have your counselor call and let them know they're your top choice. When it comes to taking kids off the waitlist they can pick anybody, and they're much more likely to pick someone they know will enroll. Ethics are involved here, though. I wouldn't recommend doing this unless wustl truly IS your top choice and you WILL enroll.</p>
<p>To continue in that vein,there are reasons to just walk away at this point. On a waitlist you're up in the air, perhaps even until next fall. Its hard to get excited about where you DID enroll if you're hoping something will intervene to save you from that school. And you should check with wustl regarding financial aid if that is a factor. At some schools they've awarded everything to the admits, and there's nothing left to offer kids from the waitlist.</p>
<p>There is some bad news about wustl, though. It is a school that's striving to improve its ranking. Its notorious for flooding students with mail, for rejecting kids they think will get into ivies since they don't want to be used as a safety, etc. Another game schools play is to put huge numbers of kids on the waitlist even though they expect they will only take a small number of them. And wustl is known for this. The thinking goes that uniformed parents and GC's will more or less equate waitlist with admit. How many times have you seen in the paper an article about admissions in which someone is described as waitlisted at some prestigious school? The intent is to convey they were pretty much in, and if a seat opens up they'll be enrolled. That may be true at some schools, but others use this perception to their advantage and put hundreds of kids on the waitlist they have NO intention of ever enrolling. wustl wants to have tons of kids apply; it lets them be more picky over who they take, and it helps their ranking to appear more selective. With waitlisting they figure they aren't discouraging future applicants; future kids will figure "Joe got in --well waitlisted -- but I'm as good as him so I'll apply". Exactly what they want.</p>
<p>At some schools you might still have a good chance, but my advice for wustl is to get closure and just walk.</p>
<p>Thank you for that. I always wondered why some schools waitlisted a ridiculous number of people with no intention of admitting them.</p>
<p>carebear, how were your stats?</p>
<p>Several years ago a friend's daughter was waitlisted at Tufts. She had decided on Arizona State with a full scholarship (OOS). She got off the waitlist at Tufts in May, and her family's finances swung $40K a year that day!</p>
<p>yea, my interview DEFINITELY screwed me over. they mentioned why I chose wustl, and i mentioned how I applied to Harvard and Dartmouth and talked about how wustl was just as good, though its prestige wasn't. the dude got pretty mad, but whatever. both my harvard and dartmouth interviewers asked me the same things and actually seemed impressed that I had researched so much about the schools I was applying to and that they would all be great matches for me. SO all that stuff about "the interview isn't important".....yea</p>
<p>I had two friends who got in. One is nationally ranked at tennis, but his SAT was a 1350 with a perfect math... the other one had slightly worse stats than me and isn't an URM like me. so yea, forget the waitlist, they obviously don't want me. you should forget about Wustl if they put you on a waitlist, sorry.</p>
<p>Last year I was waitlisted at Columbia--they said we were only allowed to send a one-page letter, so I sent a letter with half-inch margins in size-10 font, and another page of pictures of some pieces that won at a small, local art show. And here I am at Columbia. Good luck; being waitlisted is such a crappy feeling and experience, but there's still a shot.</p>
<p>Ill help you out, I threw my waitlist card away and so did my identical twin (so there's 2 less people).</p>
<p>There's an article on the main CC site: College</a> Admissions: Dealing with Deferrals and Waitlists.</p>
<p>Mikemac's comments about the reputation of WUSTL for a quirky admissions policy are accurate - that's the buzz, though of course you won't hear it from the school. Sometimes, a school may waitlist a strong candidate whom they suspect might prefer to attend elsewhere if accepted, figuring that if the student is REALLY interested he'll try to get in from the waitlist. They "waste" fewer acceptances that way.</p>