<p>Hi everyone.</p>
<p>I was recently waitlisted from both NYU and Carnegie Mellon (CIT), and here's my situation.</p>
<p>I've been accepted to Boston College, but I'd rather go to either NYU or Carnegie Mellon (preferably NYU). For NYU, it's simple, I just waitlist myself.</p>
<p>However, Carnegie has two waitlisting options; a regular waiting list, and a priority waiting list. If you go on the priority waiting list and get accepted, you MUST attend (and pay a 600 dollar deposit).</p>
<p>Again, I really prefer NYU. But I just don't know how likely my chances are of being accepted from the waitlists, and I want to be certain of being accepted to either CMU or NYU... so what should I do?</p>
<p>1) Priority Waitlist Carnegie (and be forced to attend if I'm accepted from that list)
2) Regular Waitlist Carnegie, Waitlist NYU (both of which have lower chances)
3) Accept BC's offer</p>
<p>Well, there are two things that you should definitely do. Accept BC's offer--you may lose a couple hundred dollars in deposit, but you need to make sure that you have somewhere to enroll next year. You can wait until it is closer to May 1, but I doubt that either CMU or NYU will consider waitlist candidates before then, so you might as well do it now. </p>
<p>You should also accept NYU's waitlist--it is not binding, and it is the school that you really want to go to. </p>
<p>Now comes the tricky decision--what to do about CMU. First, is money a concern? Because if you applied for finaid and really need money to attend these colleges, you should not accept the CMU priority waitlist, as you will be stuck with the finaid package they offer you. Yes, you <em>may</em> be able to wiggle out if you just can't pay, but it would be better not to get into that position in the first place. </p>
<p>Checking the latest Kaplan/Newsweek college guide, I find that last year or the year before that, NYU waitlisted 1608 students and accepted a mere 41. The chances are long indeed for you at NYU. At CMU, 2700 were waitlisted and 120 were accepted--lousy odds as well. Ultimately, it is your decision of course, but being that Carnegie Mellon doesn't accept very many people off of their waitlist anyway, I would probably say just stay on the normal waitlists at both schools--your chances seem pretty lousy either way, unfortunately.</p>
<p>NYU is not known to be generous with finaid -- they give big $$ to kids they really want, and loans to kids towards the middle of the stat pile. Thus, if you need finaid, NYU won't be an option even if you come off the WL.</p>
<p>Oh I see... so the prospect isn't very good either way.</p>
<p>If I have to try to find an optimistic side to those statistics... do they include students rejecting the offer to those schools from the beginning? i.e. students who may have been among the thousand or so that were waitlisted, but some of those students simply chose to go to other schools?</p>