<p>My friend recently found out she was waitlisted at 5 schools: Claremont McKenna, Haverford, Barnard, Vassar, and Skidmore. Should she accept a place on all of the waitlists and send in extra stuff and just see if she gets into any? Does anyone know the chance of getting off any of those waitlists?</p>
<p>I'd say stay on the waitlist.</p>
<p>If she calls the college, they will tell her the number of people on the waitlist last year and the number accepted off of it, and the number of people on the waitlist this year. It is not unusual for a college to put more people on the waitlist than they accepted. The reasoning is apparently meant to make the applicant feel that they aren't a total failure, but being waitlisted and being denied are almost the same thing.</p>
<p>Still, it doesn't cost anything to stay on a waitlist. The only important thing is to put a deposit down at a college where you were accepted. Mentally it is better to just forget about being waitlisted somewhere else and to get on with your life.</p>
<p>I wouldn't go by the number of students taken from prior year's waitlists. Historically it seems to change from year to year based upon lots of criteria. If there's one she really wants, she should write back and tell them so. </p>
<p>And if she is in the position where the decision will not be made based on financial aspects, find a way to put that in too. I think especially at the waitlist juncture, being a full paying vs. fin aid student can tip the balance.</p>
<p>Last year my daughter was waitlisted at one of her top two (LAC) schools in April. She wrote them within the week saying that she wished to remain on the waitlist, managed to find something to tell them about that had happened since her initial application, her stong desire to attend the school and said that even though she had been accepted by and offered merit money at another school, her parents had agreed to forgoe the award if she were accepted off the waitlist. She was accepted several weeks later.</p>
<p>efg: What schools was this girl accepted to? That must really suck to be waitlisted at 5 excellent schools but at least she still sort of has a shot.
Also I must ask the oh-so-lame question: what were her stats like? Just out of curiosity.</p>
<p>mhc: Forgoing merit aid to get off of a wait list? Did she get anything at all from the waitlist college?</p>
<p>She got into the University of Vermont and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst (her two safeties). She has yet to hear back from Amherst where she was deferred Early Decision and Wesleyan.</p>
<p>piendre, I didn't mean to make it sound that dramatic. </p>
<p>My D got the merit aid award at one of her saftey schools, and while that made her and us think very very seriously about going there, it turned out that her HS boyfriend was also accepted there and decided to attend. They both tacitly agreed they needed some distance and since she had more options than he did, she decided that she would not accept. So when she wrote to her waitlist school saying that that she would forgo the aid, while it was certainly true, she was really passing it up for other reasons.</p>
<p>As it turned out, in the interim after she wrote to them, she was also accepted outright at her other top choice. The waitlist acceptance came after we had sent a deposit into the other LAC and in fact, while she was on an academic school sponsored senior trip. They only gave her a week to decide and so we had some agonizing e-mails back and forth before the final decision was made. In the end, she did not go to the waitlist school.</p>
<p>But my point was that many of the LACs, even the generous ones, are not need blind and are in fact becoming and less and less so. When they are trying to decide between numbers of more or less equal students, being in a position to pay the full freight can add to the desirability of a student. In this case I had recently read the school's 5 year plan and gleaned that they were beginning to look for more full paying students. Would she have been accepted off the waitlist any way? I guess I can't really say, but when you're on the waitlist, hoping to get off, you put yourself in the best possible light.</p>
<p>I'm just really surprised that she would get waitlisted at so many colleges. It seems a little ridiculous.</p>
<p>I'm a huge advocat of waitlists since I am now at the school that waitlisted me. If offered, and you want to go, stay on it. I probably wouldn't stay on all five; two or at most three. Sure it's not the greatest position to be put in, but it's a second chance to go to your dream school and well worth it (especially if you're not thrilled with your other options). Good luck.</p>
<p>I would say stay on the waitlist of any school she really wants to attend (read: much more than the schools that accepted her) - the more waitlists she stays on, the better her chances of getting a yes.</p>
<p>Would sending in a peer recommendation help her or would adcoms not give it much weight?</p>
<p>Something she's done or a grade or honor or achievement that wasn't on or came in after her application to the school. If nothing like that, perhaps a teacher recommendation or recommendation from someone who knows her from an EC. Something to get her over the hump, past others on the waitlist.</p>
<p>Or, what many think is most important, but may be difficult in her case: the statement that she really wants to go to that school, that it's her number one choice and if accepted, would attend.</p>
<p>All of the schools she's been waitlisted at are very fine schools, but there are two to three groupings of selectivity. Which leads me to believe that - assuming her stats were within range, she may have subtly given all of them the idea that she was just looking for acceptances but really wanted to go elsewhere (Amherst?). In other words, she met their criteria but didn't give them the idea that she'd attend if accepted. She needs to impress upon one of them that if they offer her a place off the waitlist, she will accept.</p>
<p>I agree with poster who urged staying on all five waitlists. Realistically, she should now view Amherst and Wesleyan as longshots at this point. Being on five waitlists and working every one of them hard is her best bet to get accepted to one of them...and she only needs to get accepted to one of them.</p>
<p>I would actually recommend that people accept the situation and move on. If you want to stay on a waitlist as a longshot while doing everything possible to improve your chances, it doesn't hurt anything, but mentally people need to forget about it. I would call the college and ask how many people were on the waitlist last year and how many came off of it. Obviously things may be different this year from last. Still if they answer that 400 were on the waitlist last year and 2 came off of it, that would be typical. I would at least check on it to that extent. It is better than holding onto a possibly forlorn hope thru August.</p>