Waitlisted from UChicago— Is Vanderbilt out of the question?

So, I was waitlisted by UChicago. 31 ACT, 4.3 Weighted GPA, 2nd in class coming from a low income free lunch and poor performance public school. Honestly, Vanderbilt is my dream school. I’m wondering if I should just consider myself rejected since I didn’t get into Chicago. Does anyone have any kind of insight? Should I keep my hopes up?

Generally, one highly-selective school’s decision does not necessarily say much about another highly-selective school’s decision. I might expect rejection from Vandy, but not because of the UChicago waitlist. (If anything, I might be pleased about the waitlist – better than a rejection.) Vandy’s middle 50 percentiles are 33-35, putting a 31 well under their 25th percentile. Vandy has a low admit rate at 9.6% and has a reputation for especially liking high test scores. You have a chance with your excellent rank, but low expectations seem prudent. That way, in the event of an acceptance, you can be pleasantly surprised. Good luck!

Low expectation for either (no matter if you have super high scores or not) or really any of these elite schools make sense. You should go in not expecting anything but hoping for the best. Either way, it isn’t like all these schools look for the exact same thing. They all like high achievers but everything else they may want depend on a lot of things specific to the school. View each decision as completely independent and don’t assume that 2 schools with similar incoming stats use the exact same ideals in their admissions. Chicago, even with the new focus in admissions is likely to be far different from many other places aside from wanting high stats just like VU. VU and Chicago have similar ranges to HYPM and yet no one should EXPECT to be denied or admitted to any of them simply because they are below within or even above the IQR of these schools. They have different histories, vibes, undergraduate departmental strengths and demands, which are all things that will likely influence their class shaping processes in ways that wouldn’t manifest itself the same way as another highly selective school.

College admissions are essentially a lottery now because of how selective everything is. In other words, the hairs being split to determine who gets in are so small that it’s almost nonexistent. So don’t give up hope for Vandy—it’s a reach for everyone, but you have just as good a shot as anyone else.

Never count yourself in or out… My D18 was rejected EA by UNC-Chapel (OOS) and wait-listed at Wake, but accepted to UVA (EA-OOS), Wm&Mary, and Vanderbilt … so you just never know what one admissions team is looking for or what will stand out to one school but not another. Hang in there!

Agree. 3 yrs ago, D was denied at 4 Ivy’s, MIT, NW, WashU, but got into Duke.