I am currently a high school senior applying for admission to an undergraduate institution in Fall of 2016. So far, I have been put on the wait list at every college I have applied to, and I was wondering if this is typical, or if anyone else has had the same experience. So far UChicago, WashU, Hopkins, and Northwestern have all waitlisted me rather than grant me admission or flatly deny it to me. Has anyone else had a similar experience? I just found it odd to be waitlisted at every school so far.
Did you apply to a safety? The schools you listed are reaches for most people . Safeties are there to avoid this type of situation. Hopefully you’ll get good news in the next few weeks.
Yes, I’ve already been admitted to my safety, and now I’m just waiting to see how the rest of my applications turn out. I should have mentioned that in my original post, thanks.
How many others are you waiting to hear from? Would you be happy at your safety? Is one of the four that WL’d you your top choice?? If so, you should do everything you can to let that one school know so. Also curious how you heard from all 4 so soon. Were they early action? And were you actually waitlisted - or simply deferred to regular round? Sorry for so many questions - It’s been 2 years since we went through this with our twins. I know UChi has early action - but thought Northwestern and JHU were ED. So I’m a bit confused. In any event, good luck!
@4Gulls – Regular decisions are coming out now, so I don’t think the OP is talking about early action. My son was WL at UChicago too…
Got it! I guess it’s later than I realized in the cycle. Happy not to be going through it again.
One of my S’s best friends, a top student at his HS, was wait-listed at every top school he applied to. No outright rejections. Thankfully he applied to a couple of safeties as well. He’s now a senior in college who will be graduating in a few months.
UChicago has a huge WL – don’t count on getting off of it.
These days many schools use the “waitlist” as a soft deny, putting literally thousands on the list when they know they’ve taken handfuls at best the past decade. They sometimes rationalize it as kinder to the applicants or claim to be keeping their options open to build that perfect mix of students for their entering class as they backfill from the waitlist, but I think it’s something quite different.
Really what you’ve become is part of their marketing effort to future applicants. These colleges expect word will get around your HS that you’ve been waitlisted at these schools, knowing that many kids (and parents) treat waitlisting as roughly the same as admitted. Kids with stats similar to you won’t be discouraged from applying in the future the way they would if you were flat-out rejected.
You can sometimes find numbers in the Common Data Set reports. In one recent year for JHU, 2,069 offered waitlist, 57 eventually accepted from the waitlist. WUSTL, well known for passing out waitlist slots, won’t even list how many it handed out in its Common Data Set!!! In 2013-14 they admitted 80. Northwestern, 2,852 offered waitlist, 14 eventually accepted.
JHU enrolls about 1,300 frosh each year. They are under no illusion that every one of them will decline, and so will most of the 1st crop admitted off the waitlist. In other words they know most of the waitlist kids won’t get in, but it is a great move on their part to have 2,069 kids out their spreading the word they were offered a slot on the waitlist.
Those crazy wait list numbers are a direct result of kids applying to so many schools. Logically speaking, yields have to come down overall and more randomness creeps in with more students admitted, so schools should compensate by admitting less and waitlisting more. @macmike , I am sure that there is some truth in what you same, especially with colleges manipulating ratings. Eventually students will equate waitlist with rejection.
The waitlist is a frustrating experience. My D got waitlisted by 4 top schools last year (Chicago, Cornell, Rice, CMU). Most will give you the results in June. (CMU was different - they offered her a spot on a special “priority” waitlist which they announce the results of only a couple of days after May 1 and where she was nearly guaranteed to get off of.)
She found it very frustrating to wait and see whether she would get off the waitlists and went ahead and enrolled at her safety (RPI) which had offered her a full tuition scholarship (CMU also offered a scholarship but not as large and it would have meant debt.) In the end, she didn’t get off the lists at Chicago, Cornell or Rice.
My advice is treat these waitlists as “nice no’s”. The chances of getting off the list - at least at Chicago - are even lower than getting accepted in the first place. Encourage yourself that those colleges counted you as in the top ~20% of their applicants from a competitive selection of applicants.
so which schools are you planning on accepting their waitlist? I’ve read it’s not good to accept more than 2 incase a lot of schools decide to take you off the waitlist and everything gets hectic (since there’s no say on when they’ll announce the results and most give you a deadline to reply). I would pick Hopkins and UChicago if I were you 
PLEASE do not follow the advice to limit your wait lists. There is nothing wrong with accepting each and every wait list assuming you would consider going there. Wait lists are not binding and there is no downside to accepting them. Worst case they say no later.
Where on earth did you read that? Students can accept spots on as many waitlists as they want.
That is ridiculous. Your odds of getting off the waitlist are slim anyplace – take any of them where you would want to attend over whereever you plan to deposit. Odds of chaos of multiple offers is very slim, and I’m sure you can manage it if it happens.
I was Wailisted at UChicago, Syarcuse, NYU, GW and American University…so Im definitely in your same position!! I started my own non-profit since applying to these schools, and American NYU and GW ask for an update and another Why you want to go there question, so I defs did those and I wrote letters to Syracuse and UChicago and wrote another essay updating UChicago…really keeping my fingers crossed that I get off somewhere but I definitely feel your pain !!