Waitlisted by 9 Elite Schools

Applying to College
1

Northeastern: (rejected)
University of Michigan: (accepted)
University of Virginia: (accepted)
UNC Chapel Hill: (accepted)

Yale: (rejected)

Harvard: (Waitlist)

UPenn: (Waitlist)

Georgetown: (accepted)
Duke: (waitlist)
Dartmouth: (waitlist)
Stanford: (waitlist)
Columbia: (waitlist)
UChicago: (waitlist)
Vanderbilt: (waitlist)
Brown: (waitlist)

Princeton (Rejected)
Cornell: (accepted)

Just wanted to share my Bizarre college decisions. Elite schools are such a crapshoot, I expected to either get rejected by most schools or accepted one or two more. Goes to show the randomness of admissions.

SAT: 1490 (780 English, 710 math, 8-6-8 essay)

Subject tests: 800 world history, 800 us history

AP Tests: US History (5), World History (5), AP Lang (5), AP Stat (4), AP Macro (self studied, 4), AP Chem (3), 5 more APs senior year

Rank: valedictorian
Race: Indian American (ORM)

Extracurriculars: Field organizer for NYS Senate Democrats, State Senate Government Office Intern, Editor in Chief of School newspaper, Model Congress President (Best delegate awards), Model UN President, Band President (All County), Varsity Badminton team, math team (awards)

2

Congrats on those outstanding results! You should be quite proud. Would be surprised if you didn’t move off any waitlists especially this yr with the pandemic and so many things being up in the air.

3

Thank you! Definitely have some hope, but I’m pretty content on the school I committed to otherwise.

4

Except for maybe Northeastern, I see no randomness in your results.

5

I guess by randomness I mean that I expected more concrete yes or no decisions than a boatload of waitlists

6

Barring coming off a waitlist somewhere, which school are you choosing?

7

Cornell ILR

8

What was your first choice? I’m curious because most people wouldn’t be equally happy at both Columbia and Dartmouth.

9

First choice was Yale. I applied REA, was deferred and then rejected.

10

Not very random or bizarre. Many schools WL a ton of clearly qualified candidates that they aren’t sure will attend or simply don’t have room for.

And yes, you ended up with good results/options.

11

Since Cornell and UMichigan are definitely “elite”, and both UVM and UNC have extremely low OOS acceptances, I would say that 4 acceptances from a list of reaches is par for the course.

Though, considering your stats and the fact that you are an ORM, I would say that you did better than many people with similar profiles.

12

Absolutely congratulations. I can tell you first hand of a few students with equal gpa (vals) and relative ecs with 40 plus points higher on their boards shut out from the schools that accepted you. Enjoy and have a great four years.

13

You were admitted to Georgetown, Michigan, Cornell, Virginia, & UNC-Chapel Hill.

Waitlisted at Harvard & Stanford.

In my view, it looks like you won !

P.S. If you ever open a lottery ticket buying service, I will become a customer.

14

Let me change the headline for you: “Accepted by 5 elite schools”

15

Looks like the northeastern rejection was (correctly!) about yield protection?

16

Thank you everyone, I wasn’t expecting such positive comments! I do think the Northeastern rejection was yield protection, a few people at my school were accepted with less stellar stats and large scholarships. Could the background of my high school have had an impact on my decisions? I’m from a mostly middle class suburban public high school. Traditionally we only get one student accepted into an HYSPM every year, and there was a different student at my high school that got into some of the schools I was waitlisted at. Not salty or anything, just curious about how admissions works and if this could impact my chance of getting off the waitlist as of course the student can only attend one school.

17

That looked like a really interesting program.

18

Yep, very happy to attend. Was a lot cheaper too than some of the other schools on my list as I qualify for In state tuition as a NY contract school.

19

My D was rejected from northeastern when three other students from her school got in with lower stats than her. She questions the decision but never got straight answers. I m sure the one accepted didn’t request financial aid!

20

Congrats on Cornell! You can only attend one school and you got into a great program at a wonderful school that happens to be cheaper than other options. Sounds like a win to me.