<p>Does anyone know about Pomona and their waitlist?</p>
<p>an update on Hamilton waitlists</p>
<p>In addition to going needblind this year on regular admissions, apparently it is also treating waitlists differently this year - on a needblind basis…</p>
<p>and on the general topic of this thread, yes, it appears that due to the general economy, students applied to many more colleges than usual this year, in order to test the waters on the financial aid. Record numbers of applications have been recorded at many colleges. Acceptance rates at many colleges will be among their lowest in years. The net effect will be to see many of the colleges below the top 20 or so go to their waiting lists more than in the past.</p>
<p>FWIW, I’ve heard also that colleges tend to waitlist top-choice kids that have NOT visited the campus. So visiting is helpful so that you can say that you love the campus and have no qualms about accepting an acceptance off the WL should you get one.</p>
<p>But I don’t know if it’s true.</p>
<p>^^In 2008, my daughter was waitlisted/and accepted at the colleges she visited…so I’m not sure this generalization can be made across the board…</p>
<p>One recent comment on waitlists - colleges may waitlist a student more as a compliment than as a reasonable expectation of gaining admission. Many colleges have qualified applicants that well exceed the number of aceptances they plan to give out. They don’t like to “reject” a qualified student for whom there simply is not enough room - therefore the waitlist. So, it’s their way of trying to soften the blow and let you know that you were not deficient in any way - they simply had too many “fill in the blank - white females from the mid-Atlantic or whatever your category”. I think this helps to explain why a college might waitlist 2000 students when they historically only take 50 off the waitlist, and that sort of thing. So, generally, take it as a compliment and then move on to focus on the schools where you have acceptances.</p>
<p>Back to the OP’s original question:</p>
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<p>My S was also waitlisted at his four top colleges. I wonder the same thing.</p>
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<p>I wonder if the Common App expansion has anything to do with the increase in app numbers at every college. Since it seems that every top college had a huge jump in apps this year, you would think that yields would have to be affected. Kids are applying to way more schools but they still only go to one. So that affects yield, right?</p>
<p>I wish I were a mathematician/statistician so I could answer my own question.</p>
<p>Here’s one report that seems to concur that yields are going to be unpredictable this year.</p>
<p>[Penn</a> waitlists over 3,000 | The Daily Pennsylvanian](<a href=“http://www.thedp.com/article/penn-waitlists-over-3000]Penn”>http://www.thedp.com/article/penn-waitlists-over-3000)</p>
<p>Good article and it validates the point I made above - “The waitlist is a way to send a signal that youve done everything right to a student, he said, but there simply isnt enough room for everyone.” Students need to take being waitlisted as a compliment of sorts, and then move on, as chances of coming off a waitlist, particularly at an elite school, are slim.</p>
<p>^^That’s just awful to “waitlist” thousands of kids. That’s the equivalent of giving an award to everyone in the class in elementary school. That sounds like I’m being harsh, but if you think about it that is exactly what it is. I wonder what percentage of those “thousands” actually stay on the waitlist and what percentage of those kids have trouble emotionally moving on toward a place they were accepted? I think thousands is just terrible.</p>
<p>I agree - and this is why I’m hoping waitlisted students (and their parents) read this thread and realize exactly what it means. I think colleges dislike the idea of rejecting a well-qualified student. And when they are receiving 40,000 apps for 4000 acceptance spots - that is what they are forced to do. I think they mean well - hoping that the student will get that being waitlisted means their credentials were impressive. But I think too many students get the waitlist decision and think it means they still have a shot - which is not really the case most of the time.</p>
<p>
Except that admissions decisions are not honors or awards or recognitions of anything. They’re tactical, goal-oriented actions. As others have said, a big bump in waitlisting probably reflects a corresponding bump in uncertainty about yield. What do you want colleges to do? Ignore the uncertainty and make decisions based on assumptions that might not turn out to be true, just to spare our kids some uncertainty of their own? If College X admits too many students and is overenrolled, are we going to voluntarily withdraw our kids and take a gap year for their convenience? If College X admits too few students and is underenrolled, are we going to voluntarily eat our deposit at some other school and accept a seat at College X for their convenience? Why should we expect them to act against their own interests just to make us happy? Would we do that for them?</p>
<p>Across the board this year the schools saw a record number of applicants. I personally don’t think it is because there are more people applying to schools, I think it is because the same number of students are applying to more schools. Now the colleges are reporting record low acceptance rates. This means that they didn’t adjust the number of people they accept to reflect this view but rather are playing it safe.</p>
<p>If there isn’t an increase in the total number of people who plan to attend college next year then we will now see yields that are lower than normal. If the colleges accepted close to the same number as they usually do then they will go to their wait lists to fill up freshman classes. Good news for wait listed students.</p>
<p>the conclusion of today’s posts can be summed up in what I posted yesterday:</p>
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<p>by the way, even last year, I have seen some colleges send kids to waitlists in an amount equal to the number of acceptances. The reason for this?..uncertainty on the yield, but also, as discussed earlier, to soften the blow of not admitting a student…</p>
<p>in case any of you are interested, the historical waiting list figures are listed in the common data set of each college.</p>
<p>here we go, Lehigh for the fall 2009 class:</p>
<p>[Lehigh</a> University-Common Data Set](<a href=“http://www.lehigh.edu/~oir/cds/lucds2009.htm]Lehigh”>http://www.lehigh.edu/~oir/cds/lucds2009.htm)</p>
<p>total applicants = 11,170
total acceptances = 3,662
total waitlisted = 3,226</p>
<p>Number accepting a place on the waiting list = 1,160<br>
Number of wait-listed students admitted = 43</p>
<p>What we don’t know is how many calls they had to make to get those 43 admissions. Wait lists are notoriously fickle. If waitlists are larger than past years (and that’s still an “if” in my mind) it may well simply be a function of having gotten more turndowns from the prior year.</p>
<p>interesting point, qialah…is that “43” number the number that were “offered” spots off the waitlist? or is that the number that accepted the offer…? makes the CDS numbers open to interpretation, doesn’t it?</p>
<p>in this case, I believe that it is the accepted figure…</p>
<p>I have seen both the offered admittance from waitlist and accepted figures for some colleges.</p>
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<p>rodney – 43 is the number that accepted a spot from the wait list. Thanks for the numbers JohnAdams12. I think those numbers were not unusual for last year.</p>
<p>this is a good thread for waitlist figures</p>
<p>enjoy:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/45272-waitlisted-statistical-chances-getting.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/45272-waitlisted-statistical-chances-getting.html</a></p>