<p>I know many people in my school who were waitlisted by multiple colleges. I myself applied to 12 schools, and was waitlisted by 5, rejected by 2, and accepted to 4 (waiting on one more), and while I am by no means in a bad situation, I am confused about why they are using the waitlist so much.
Although waitlist is slightly disappointing, it is better than the expected rejections from the <10% admit rate schools...</p>
<p>I’m thinking that it’s uncertainty of yield due to some top schools going to SCEA this year. I know Chicago had a huge waitlist this year, but you may need more numbers to see if your schools waitlisted more applicants than normal this year.</p>
<p>The number of applicants have jumped 10-20% at each school. It means that everybody is applying to more schools these days than they did in the years past. Schools realize this and they know their typical yield rates are not going to hold this year. WHich means - more waitlists.</p>
<p>I think that kids applied to so many schools this year that many of the colleges are going to be scrambling to fill their classes this summer after everyone commits. I think some may run out of kids on the waits lists because remember the kids on the wait lists are also probably accepted somewhere else.</p>
<p>People have written before that the waitlists are for the most part a marketing ploy by colleges – marketing to the current juniors who will be applying next year. By putting people on the “waitlist” they create the impression that they were in a sense accepted and the college is just waiting for the dust to settle before many if not most of them get accommodated. You see this time and again in local newspaper articles about a star student who was “accepted to A & B, waitlisted at C and D”. This is good marketing because it encourages others to apply next year, reasoning that with a little bit of luck they may get flat-out accepted instead of having to wait a bit to get in.</p>
<p>Exhibit A should be Duke, a school striving to better its reputation. Duke waitlisted 3,382 students in 2011, a number that is about twice the size of the number of places they have for frosh. In other words to empty the waitlist every single person accepted would have to decline, and so would the entire set accepted from the waitlist to replace them. Of course Duke has no illusions this will happen; in 2010 they took a grand total of 60 and the odds are pretty good the number this year will be similar.</p>
<p>It was, however, a good move on Duke’s part to have 3,382 kids out there spreading the word at their HS that they are waitlisted at Duke. If 2 or 3 kids say to themselves “Sally got waitlisted and I’m just as good a student, maybe even a bit better; I think I can get in!” then Duke gets a bump in the number of students that applied, making it even more selective and boosting its desirability.</p>
<p>Seems everyone is following WUSTLs lead, they’ve been known for their massive WLing of students for years. I started seeing this trend last year when D2 was WLed to two schools and a friend to about half a dozen.</p>
<p>@mikemac</p>
<p>When you put it that way, it appears as though a) colleges are lying, which is unethical, and b) waitlist is just false hope. As much as I don’t want to believe that, a part of me really does. And if that is the case, what is the point staying on the waitlist?</p>