Waitlisted - What to do now

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
1

<p>My son has been placed on the waitlist for admission to the Class of 2010 at Harvard. I've been reading various threads and I'm wondering if anyone here can provide any advice on what he should be doing now - he has expressed his desire to remain on the waitlist, but he's not sure if he should be contacting admissions (harassment?), sending new recommendations, etc....
It's scary to be so close (to being admitted), yet so far (no idea on how to proceed to improve chances against what odds). Fortunately for him, he has been accepted into some other colleges (WUSL, Boston U, Boston College, ND) where he would be happy and receive a good education, but they aren't Harvard. </p>

<p>Congratulations to all of you who have been accepted, an awesome accomplishment!!!!!</p>

2

<p>Does anyone know how many were waitlisted for the class of 2010 and how many got in off the wait list if any last year? At this point is there anything you can do to improve your chances of getting in off the waitlist? Thanks for your input on this.</p>

3

<p>I'm a current sophomore [2008] who got in off of the wait list. The number admitted varies each year, but its usually between 50 and 100 depending on yield [That number was pulled from <a href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=97206%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=97206&lt;/a>. It's an old article and I want to say 47 from my year, but I might be making that up].</p>

<p>The best advice would be to stay in contact with admissions and send information on any recent accomplishments. This would show interested as well as improve your application.</p>

<p>If you are successful you will get a package some time in May which you will have 48 hours to respond to. My admissions officer called me when the decision was made to give me a few more days, although I'm not sure if this is standard.</p>

<p>Good luck</p>

4

<p>does anyone know the yield rate this year? how many will be taken off the WL?</p>

5

<p>According to this, they are only planning on taking 5 or 6 people from the waitlist this year. Yield went up to 80% and they already have more students than they had intended to enroll. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=513463%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=513463&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

6

<p>Wow, that's depressing.</p>

7

<p>Depressing, yes. Impossible, no.</p>

8

<p>How many were waitlisted?</p>

9

<p>I think I read somewhere it's "couple of hundreds"--whatever that means.</p>