I’m a current high school senior who has finished applying to colleges, and recently, I received news that I was waitlisted everywhere I applied, except for my safety school. Below is a list of the schools I was waitlisted at:
UChicago
Northwestern
Johns Hopkins
UPenn
Cornell
Stanford
Wash U
Columbia
Duke
Vanderbilt
I’m really unsure what to make of this – was I just really unlucky? Is there a chance I will get off of any of these waitlists (I’ve been having trouble locating statistics for # admitted off these waitlists)?
@Rockbomb, did you work with anyone to put together your application list as it’s advisable to apply to a mix of Target, Reach and Safety schools. No you weren’t necessarily unlucky as the schools noted aren’t targets for anyone given the acceptance rates are simply too low to categorize as such even for a student that profiles at the top-25%.
Unfortunately, you didn’t apply to any matches, just a safety and reaches (those are all reach schools for most every student).
Fall in love with your safety. Put your housing deposit down if you haven’t already and move on. If you do get a call from a waitlist, decide then but you can’t count on it. If you were truly waitlisted at all with no rejections, let that sooth your ego a bit but you still have to move on.
To answer your question, no, you are not unlucky. You applied to mostly Ivy or top tier schools that are reach for nearly everyone. You should have applied to more match schools.
You got accepted to your safety school, so you are going to college. Breathe, and know you have options. You need to confirm your spot with that one college before May 1. Be prepared to “lose” that deposit should other options present themselves. Perhaps meet with your GC and see if any schools still offer rolling admission. Apply to any of those which are a MATCH. Then, after May rolls around, take a look at the "2017 Space Available List’. Here is a link to a Time article from 2016, so you can see how the process works. Good luck to you!
I don’t think you were unlucky per se, with that list of schools the results are not unusual or to be unexpected. It’s great you had a school that was a safety. You can accept a place on the waitlist of any of those schools but don’t set your sights on them. I think you would have had a more interesting mix of schools to choose from had you chosen some good but less selective schools.
What is your safety? My D was waitlisted to 4 of the same schools listed above, but she is not staying on any of the wait lists. She was accepted into one of her top choice schools, but she also has good match with scholarship $ and a safety with scholarship $. Many other students like my D will remove themselves from the waitlists by May 1. I hope you get a call from one of your waitlist schools. In the meantime, visit your safety’s admitted student events and join the Facebook group. Does your safety have an honors program? Many of the schools listed above have 1000s of people on the wait list. Ask your guidance counselor to look at the Common Data Set wait list info for the past few years with you and to make inquiries about whether you have a realistic chance of coming off the list at any of those schools.
I would lick one or two of these (Cornell and Wash U ) and work the waitlist very hard. I think your chances are very low at the others. No realistic chance at Stanford, Uchicago and Columbia.
–What are your stats?
–What was your safety?
–Were you accepted to your safety? You said only that you weren’t waitlisted. I’m wondering, because that was one horrible list that you dreamed up and it wouldn’t surprise me if your safety was nearly as risky.
Thank you everyone. The reason I didn’t apply to match schools was b/c my parents and I were not ready to pay 60k+ for a school that wasn’t a top one when I had already gotten a full-ride to my state school.
Good stats. You probably would have gotten into several matches if the rest of your profile was decent. It’s too bad you and your parents didn’t think any good quality match schools were better options than your state school. Maybe you would have chosen the full-ride in the end, but it’s always nice to have options. Are your parents ok with your one option?
There are many excellent state flagships that will provide either full or half merit scholarships for kids with those credentials, as well as certain top-25 LAC that will provide up to a half merit scholarship - my DD was honored with a $30K/year John N. Stern Scholarship at Oberlin which is wonderful, and I know Grinnell and Kenyon have similar opportunities.
To be honest I had already guessed this when I saw the list that you were waitlisted at, rather than rejected (your grades had to be this exceptional).
I didn’t see what your “safety” school was. Did I miss it or did you not say? Is it a very good state university? If so, then it is probably a very good choice, and you will do very well there.
No, you are not “unlucky”, the universities that you were waitlisted at are nearly impossible to get into unless you have some huge “hook” which goes beyond grades and test scores (such as being the president’s child, or a nobel prize winner).
State Universities have many, many top students who, like you, choose them for economic reasons! Congratulations on your full ride! Seek out other students who are motivated like you, and run with it for all it’s worth. More important, be very pro-active to seek out mentoring relationships with professors. If there are professors you especially respect, who are doing work that interests you, e-mail or speak with them to offer to help with research projects. That can lead to amazing opportunities if you are dedicated and persistent. There is a thread here (I’m sure there are many) about a disappointed student who was in your position. She hated her first year of college until she became involved with special research projects with her professors. Through this involvement, she also met like-minded students to be friends with. She came to understand that she was able to shine at a big state school in her particular field (physics, I believe) in a way that she might not have in an Ivy…ironically leading to her graduate admission to…an Ivy.
Also note that competition is fierce to secure a tenure-track position at any university or college these days. So your professors should be very, very qualified at your big state school. It is true that many of your classes may have several hundred students and may be largely taught by TA’s in smaller sections. That is why you will shine if you seek out opportunities to do special projects one-on-one with professors. Good luck!
BTW, @Rockbomb, it is normal to grieve about this, but know that these results are not a poor reflection on your abilities or character. These schools are reaches for everyone, as most have noted above. So much is a matter of chance. The fact that you were waitlisted at most (rather than flat-out rejected) is actually quite a compliment.
Obviously you were a legitimate candidate at these schools. Contrary to some other opinions, I do think that you were somewhat unlucky not to have tipped into an acceptance at any of them. (Of course you could also have tipped into an outright rejection.) I can see how this would be frustrating: it would frustrate me.
If you wanted to be fairly certain of having a choice, a couple of match schools would have been wise. On the other hand, dropping the rest of the safeties and matches when you already have a full ride to your state U is not an unreasonable strategy.
But that is water under the bridge. I’d stay on the waitlists, it doesn’t cost you anything, but prepare to go to your state school and make the most of it. If you have any additional information, such as awards after the RD deadline, by all means send a letter or email. Send a letter of interest anyway. You could talk to your GC and see if s/he has any insight for you. Then put it out of your mind.
Would you mind sharing the identity of your state school?