Waitlisted, what are my chances?

<p>Hi,
My daughters number one school choice Elon wait listed her, which is not what any of us wanted to hear. She was accepted into U Minnesota, NC State, HPU among others. She has a 3.96 gpa and a 28 ACT. Just recently, we did go and talk to her Elon admissions councelor just to put a face to her application, and to also find out why, and what we could do to better our chances. We did read in general, chances and percentages of being wait listed are not on our side for any school for that matter.
What do you think our chances are at Elon, and what could be some other ways of improving her chances of getting in, short of taking the ACT another time. </p>

<p>Thanks</p>

<p>Parent</p>

<p>P.S. Also, she listed Elon first on her FAFSA application, which I am not sure is the thing to do, based on her being wait listed. And yes, the schools do look at their order on the FAFSA for determining their financial package.</p>

<p>I’d expect that one thing you can do to help is make sure all future communications with admissions come from your daughter, not you. I am not familiar with Elon but it seems to be true for many schools. She sounds like a great candidate!</p>

<p>Have your daughter stay in contact with her AdCom. An email every few weeks detailing why she thinks Elon is a great fit for her. Keep emails short and to the point. Be specific to Elon.</p>

<p>Definitely have her let them know she’s still interested and would attend if accepted. That is important to colleges. I have seen data before for schools about how many are accepted off the wait list. I’m not sure where but try the Common Data Set</p>

<p>[Office</a> of Institutional Research - Common Data Sets](<a href=“Elon University / Institutional Research / Common Data Sets”>Elon University / Institutional Research / Common Data Sets)</p>

<p>And I agree with parent15; have her be the one that’s contacting admissions. If she has any new achievements awards make sure she sends those as well.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

<p>Did they wait list her or defer her? Did she apply Early Decision or Early Action? I wouldn’t think they were wait listing before the regular acceptance date. The prior advice is good. Have your daughter contact her Admission counselor. Send any updates to awards or grades and make it known she will attend if accepted.</p>

<p>They wait listed her per letter and she applied for early action, so hopefully the fact that it was early action, that her odds will be better. She did contact the admissions councelor within a week of meeting with her in person, and her plans are to send her another email or two in the next month. I will tell her to send one every few weeks.
I will also make sure she addresses the fact that if accepted she would attend, which she may have anyways.
The councelor did say to have her senior scores/grades sent to her as she gets them, which she will do this week. (just received her grades on Friday)</p>

<p>Thanks for your help, and if you can think of anything else, would love to hear.</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

<p>Parent</p>

<p>Good luck! It’s definitely possible! Happened to my oldest daughter three years ago at another small selective school. We were able to visit and she asked to speak to admissions. Her Rep was not available, but another one gladly sat down with her, me and my younger daughter. she said she would note in her file and included a letter that my D brought with her that stated she would attend if accepted off the wait list. She also followed up by not only sending a thank you and reiterating that the she would attend if accepted, but also sent her Senior Presentation,which she had talked about, and an update on an athletic award. Two other things really helped, I think. She contacted the coach of,the sport she wanted to play. she had only previously filled out an interest form. The coach, once he heard of her interest, contacted Admissions and expressed his interest in her. And, I have to admit we were full pay, which I think can definitely help in a waitlist situation. She received a call a few days after May 1 and offered a spot. This had not been her original #1 choice but she couldn’t be happier now. </p>

<p>I agree with the other posters advice. Elon is all about engaged learning so In addition to expressing interest , I would also suggest your son send something that shows an additional side to him that wasn’t shown in his application, especially if it implies active participation in learning or developing leadership. An essay maybe about a job, service trip or experience, a leadership position or a time when he took the initiative. He should give it his best shot, and then focus on moving on and finding a couple other schools he can see himself being happy at. Best of luck.</p>

<p>I think you’ve received a lot of good advice in this thread on the things your daughter should do to maximize her chances of getting in off the waitlist. One thing that hasn’t been mentioned that you could do is to try to get the most realistic estimate as possible of the chance that Elon will be going to their waitlist this year. They are unlikely to tell you where your daughter sits in the waitlist pool (i.e. will she be the first one offered or the last one). But admissions reps will usually give you their best judgment as to whether and how much the waitlist will be used this year. And it is important to ask specifically about this year because what happened last year or in an average year is not really relevant to your daughter.</p>

<p>For example, my son has decided to go to HPU. His admissions rep told me that they had a larger and better qualified ED pool this year and that they accepted many more ED kids than usual this year. That means they are much less likely to need go to their waitlist this year since they are relying on EA and RD kids for a much smaller number of spots. If Elon had the same experience in their ED pool, you would want to know that if for no other reason than to help set expectations about the liklihood of getting in. That doesn’t mean she should give up on her number one school, but as her parent, you don’t want her to be devastated if a long shot doesn’t come through. Good luck. Elon is a wonderful school.</p>

<p>what is the difference between deferred and wait listed at Elon?</p>

<p>Usually deferred means you still have a chance to be accepted at regular decision time.</p>

<p>from the ELon website: Being deferred means that we would like to see a student’s updated academic information and will review the application again within our Final Deadline pool.</p>

<p>Thanks scoutmom</p>

<p>We just put the schools in any old order on the FAFSA–probably now a mistake, but we did not know. My S accepted to Elon. I doubt the ACT has anything to do with it, as he had 25 ACT and 1980 SAT, and 3.6 unweighted, but TONS of leadership (long term and high level and increasing year by year), so that may have been a key. We also visited from CA back in August.</p>

<p>aggriffon – where are you from? Are you in the state or nearby? If so, did you not visit for a reason, or are you a fair distance away. I got the sense from the southern schools that they were looking to expand to national schools and also appreciated kids who had come from far away to visit. </p>

<p>We are from Michigan. We have visited twice. Once in a tour, the second we visited and talked to her admissions councelor. She has sent them a letter, email with her updated grades. We can only hope and pray.</p>

<p>Parent</p>

<p>My d got an email yesterday saying they are running a little late on acceptance letters because of the Snow Storm last week. Fingers crossed…</p>

<p>Hang in there! Current students had to wait an extra day for next year’s housing assignments for the same thing.</p>

<p>D was deferred from EA to RD. Now she has been waitlisted. Kind of a very slow rejection. Okay, we get the message. Good luck with everyone else. Elon is a great school. We are moving on.</p>

<p>Did she end up being accepted?</p>