My Daughter is waitlisted from four IVYS she applied to and below is the list:
Harvard
Columbia
UPen
Cornell
Can you please suggest what is the process she can follow to help with getting off the waitlist?
Much appreciate your help .
Hope and pray but unlikely to happen.
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It looks like she got into some other great schools. I suggest that she starts falling in love with one of them.
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Best to treat waitlists like a no, and get excited about the schools that have accepted her.
If she stays on the waitlists, she can write LOCIs to each, and ask her HS GC to call the ONE school that is her top choice to communicate that.
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The odds of getting off the waitlist are worse than the odds of having been accepted in the first place. If one of these schools was your daughters dream and you want to feel like you’ve done everything you can, she can write a letter emphasizing how its still her top choice and also ask the school counselor to lobby the rep. To be clear, none of these things will result in them changing their minds but it sometimes is noted in the file if they are looking at their waitlist. For these particular schools though, it’s a moonshot that it will help.
After that, fall in love with a school she was accepted at. Go and visit it again if necessary. Attend an accepted student event where they will pump up the students. Buy the swag. Wear the shirts as proud parents. Do everything you can to feel good about the best option available to her. And mentally move on. On the astronomical odds the waitlist comes through it will be an amazing surprise and no one for a second will regret having briefly invested in the other school. But if you alternatively keep yearning and hold out hope for a waitlist, it will be destructive to getting in the right headspace for the college she will almost certainly go to.
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It is ok to grieve a little for a moment and then -
Be thrilled with the amazing acceptances she has and move forward. Help her make a great decision about the offers she has at WashU and Rice and others. Figure out what your actual budget is and what the reals costs are at each school with merit and any need based aid. Remember, none of the Ivies were offering her any Merit or scholarships.
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Send a LOCI to each school.
Then of her wonderful acceptances, she will need to choose one by May 1. Even IF a waitlist spot opens up, it’s not likely to happen before May 1.
It’s good to start to love the schools that also loved you!
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She is in tears and sad about being waitlisted from all IVys! She just feel she fell little short of getting in. I know it will take time and she will move on
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Pretty much what Citivas said in their reply.
I will add one thing:
As Citivas said, the likelihood of getting in off the waitlist at any of the Ivies is very, very slim. Some years they might actually take NO people off the waitlist.
As long as you understand that, the one thing I will add is that I have heard occasional cases where people got off the waitlist as late as a few days before classes began. In fact, one student had already started at another school— and packed up and left when the call came.
What I mean is that, if one of these places is like their dream school, then make sure the school knows that— and keep in touch with them as the summer progresses.
What I’m saying is, waitlist decisions can happen as late as late August or early September— on exceedingly rare occasions.
But, psychologically, your daughter should move forward and be excited about the options she has— which appear to be great!
Good luck!
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I know this isn’t going to help her. It is more for others. A WL doesn’t always mean that you just missed it. Harvard and Columbia don’t disclose the size of their WL. For UPenn it was 3,205 last year. The number of acceptance letters they sent out was 3,789. So the WL was 85% the size of the acceptance pool. For Cornell, the WL was 7,746. That was 132% the size of the admitted students. UPenn took 391 and Cornell took 24 off the WL last year.
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Well…according to the above post at least two of her waitlist schools took students from the waitlists last year.
But I do agree. She needs to try to look at all of the reasons why she applied to the other fabulous places where she got accepted.
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Same thing happened to my GD a couple of years ago. Hers we’re Harvard, Yale, Brown, and Stanford. But she was accepted at Rice, Wash U and a bunch of others. She’s now at Rice, which turns out to be an amazing place and where she’s very happy. She’ll be studying at the London School of Economics this summer, one of many great opportunities at Rice as there are at many non-Ivies.
Congratulations to your daughter for many great acceptances and other achievements. Here’s to you and she moving forward.
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She didn’t fall short. She was well-qualified. There were so many applicants, and so many of the spots went to people whom the school wanted for reasons that your daughter has no control over.
She has to let it go. It’s NOT a reflection on her! She will wind up very happy and well-educated at one of the schools that did accept her. There is just about nothing that she could have done to have affected the outcome, short of being one of the people who filled the school’s checklist.
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Thanks so much for sharing your experience , It is rough night tonight ! I will make my daughter read it on weekend when she gets better
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Am I reading this thread right- that your daughter got into Rice and Wash U? I’m having trouble feeling sorry for her or you. There is nothing about those Ivies that is so special. Wash U and Rice are as good or better, at least for undergrads. There is literally no difference in prestige anymore.
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I understand. It feels like rejection and that hurts. But @parentologist is right, it’s not that she fell short. There are just way too few seats at these schools for anywhere close to the number of kids who are qualified and interested in going there. It’s just numbers.
She’s a phenomenal kid with phenomenal achievements who will be successful regardless of not getting into her top choice. If Rice & Wash U are your safety schools . . . ? You’re phenomenal. There are many kids sitting home dejected because they didn’t get into Rice and Wash U. It’s all a matter of perspective.
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Love the school that loves you back. And some great schools love her.
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My DC is also waitlisted in Columbia, Dartmouth, and Cornell. DC is proud that she is waitlisted and not rejected. So, it is just perspective. She has to great options that she is focusing on and excited about visiting different school admission day.
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To be honest, I’m blown away by the fact that your daughter was accepted into Berkeley with a SEED invitation. Berkeley is the undisputed “Harvard” of the public Ivies.
I’m blown away by the fact that your daughter was accepted at Rice with a Trustee Award. This top school really wants her! Rice is sometimes referred to as the Harvard of the South. It’s residential college system is actually modeled on the same system at Harvard and Yale.
I’m blown away by the fact that your daughter was accepted at Wash U as her safety school! Wash U is never anyone’s safety school. It’s Top 20 just like the Ivies.
The Ivies, the public Ivies, the Southern Ivies are all reach schools for everyone. They all turn away 90+% of their applicants. And in almost all cases, only top students apply to begin with. No one gets into all of these top schools that they apply to. She got into a bunch. This is one phenomenal kid. I’m blown away! 
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