The waiting is the hardest part.

March 26, 2008 6:42 AM

Do college admissions waitlists typically turn a lot of their listed students in? Or is it a lottery for a few lucky ones and a way to soften the blow of rejection for the rest?

My little bro just got waitlisted at my alma mater and i'm curious as to what his chances are. should he hold out hope or not hold his breath? I expect y'all's answers to be anecdotal at best, but it's on my mind, so.

stupid alma mater.

posted by snortlebort to education (19 comments total)

Often, universities use the waitlist as a buffer because of the uncertainty of class size. Universities (especially competitive ones) must admit more students than they expect to accept the offer of admission. This is, of course, because some of those students will choose to attend another university instead.

The number of waitlist students they accept (if any) depends on how many of the students accept the offer. When I was in undergrad, there were a few years where more students than expected accepted the offer and no one got in off the waitlist.

One thing you can do to help your little brother is badmouth your alma mater far and wide. This will, of course, hurt its reputation, and the accepted students will go to a competing college instead, freeing up a spot for your bro.
posted by JMOZ at 6:48 AM on March 26

My girlfriend was an admissions officer at a prestigious school in Canada, and JMOZ, has it. It entirely depends on how many of the "accepted" decide to actually go....
posted by Grither at 6:57 AM on March 26

I think it also depends on the school--if it's a more competitive school, his chances might be lower, as fewer people would be willing to give up their spot.
His chances would also probably depend on his position on the list. You could try calling the school and asking, but many schools won't give out that information.
posted by rux at 7:04 AM on March 26

Right, it varies a lot. He can do things to get himself near the top of the waitlist. Visit the school if he hasn't yet, write letters re-affirming the fact that he's interested in the school and excited to come. Admissions offices notice these things. At my law school, a kid basically camped out in the admissions office in the days leading up to fall semester. When one person didn't show up for class for the first 5 days, guess who got the slot?
posted by craven_morhead at 7:04 AM on March 26

The waitlist should be more than enough to cover all the spots that might become available, but not much more than that.
posted by winston at 7:05 AM on March 26

i'd like to think that, given the recent happenings in the Good Ship Economy, quite a few people ain't gonna be able to afford it any more.

this thought seems to give scant comfort to my brother.
posted by snortlebort at 7:05 AM on March 26

Your brother shouldn't wait around while he is on the waitlist. I was waitlisted at a law school, and I got on the phone with the admissions department almost right-away and made an appointment for an interview/q&a session about the waitlist and my chances of being accepted. I have a strong feeling this showing of interest shot me straight to the top of the waitlist and I was off the waitlist and admitted in two weeks.
posted by miss meg at 7:15 AM on March 26 [1 favorite]

There are a couple of things that could turn the tide in his favor. The stuff other people have said is true, but he also needs to make sure that he keeps his work up in the second semester. If he has extra rec letters he can send in, or some kind of cool experience/volunteer work that he suddenly finds, tell them about that too.

One thing I'd like to offer up is that he could very easily transfer in after his freshman year somewhere else, even a community college. Depending on what your alma mater is like, he could save money and get stellar grades the first year and then transfer in. It's easy peasy to do so -- MUCH easier than getting in as a freshman. I got either rejected or waitlisted by my eventual alma mater (can't remember), but I had no trouble getting in --even to a specialized program -- after starting at a liberal arts college. My experience working for their admissions office after graduation only cemented the fact that this was the way to go.

So tell him not to stress it. Whether he gets in now or not, he should find a school he likes well enough and excel wherever he is. He might still want to transfer, in which case he'll be well-prepared. Then again, he might want to stay right where he is. He's got lots of options :)
posted by Madamina at 7:20 AM on March 26

Seconding miss meg. Tell him not to be passive. It makes a difference.
posted by gerryblog at 7:21 AM on March 26

I've been plucked off a waitlist, less than a month before classes started. The institution I attended said the list is in an order but it isn't terribly specific. By telling them that they were still my number one choice and that I'd drop whatever I was doing to attend that school I moved up a bit. They want to be able to fill a spot right away and not spend weeks on people who need time to decide whether to move, break/get out of leases, lose deposits, etc. If someone makes it known he is willing to do that, he is more likely to get a call. At least according to the backgound info I was given by an admissions person. The also said most people on the waitlist don't get admitted.

A completely unofficial account (at least to my knowledge) is that the waitlist is used to diversify the class based on who ended up accepting the original round of admissions. If all of the admitted out-of-state white males with family incomes under $40,000 decide to go somewhere else and you happen to be a waitlisted out-of-state male with a family income of under $40,000, you're in luck. Supposedly.
posted by the christopher hundreds at 7:53 AM on March 26

I was waitlisted at the University of Virginia and eventually got in. Oddly enough, quite a few of my dormmates also got in off the waitlist. I think the connecting factor is that we were all out-of-state students, and Virginia has a set percentage of how many out-of-staters it will allow into a class. Since UVa is a fairly prestigious school, a lot of people that were applying there from out of state would also be looking at other prestigious out of state schools, or even Ivy League and good private schools, and weren't as dead-set on going to UVa as a Virginian might be.

In the meantime, I was also accepted at UC Berkeley, and basically acted like I was going to go there while I waited to see if UVa would let me in. I finally got accepted at Virginia the day after we'd sent in my dorm room deposit to Berkeley; luckily, we were able to stop the check.

So, I wouldn't put everything aside to just sit on the wait list at the one school. Keep on going on as if you were going to a different school, and if you get in eventually, that'll just be gravy. You can always transfer.
posted by LionIndex at 8:07 AM on March 26

He should definitely write the admissions office a passionate letter about how much he wants to attend the school, and how if necessary he will delay admission while he goes serve in Iraq for a couple of years (or some other show of sacrifice).
posted by thomas144 at 8:13 AM on March 26

Someone should warn you that Madamina's experience regarding transfering is also not necessarily typical at all institutions. When I was an undergrad, several of my friends at our highly-competitive private university (Stanford, for anyone who actually cares) were transfers. The size of the transfer class was also determined by the number of students who accepted admissions offers, so the acceptance rate for transfers was sometimes quite low.

I heard (though cannot confirm) about transfer acceptance rates less than 5% some years, which was significantly less than the acceptance rate for freshmen. This difference is compounded by the transfer pool (allegedly) being better at self-selecting than the freshman pool.
posted by JMOZ at 11:01 AM on March 26

But don't wait too long in the hopes that you might get in off the waitlist. My sister's boyfriend got strung along for way too long by the folks at Temple's pharmacy school, and it was really a problem.
posted by leahwrenn at 11:02 AM on March 26

I just checked the stats at Virginia for their waitlist for the past couple years. Generally, they waitlist in the neighborhood of 3000 people. About half of them accept being on the waitlist. Less than 300 actually get in. A couple years ago, the number of people getting in off the list was in the 60s. YMMV.
posted by LionIndex at 11:48 AM on March 26

I don't know if someone has already said this, but if I were I'd call up admissions, mention your an alum and that your little brother is waitlisted. It may do nothing at all, but I know plenty of people who have gotten friends off waitlists just by dropping by the admissions office and mentioning how much their friend wants to go there and how great they are.
posted by whoaali at 12:41 PM on March 26

I knew a guy in high school who got off the Brown waitlist after sending a letter about his continuing strong interest in the school and his achievements since he applied. He also mentioned that he wouldn't need any financial aid.
posted by mingshan at 1:32 PM on March 26

I agree with everyone who thinks he should follow up: He should send a letter to the admissions committee (or to the dean who signed the wait list letter) reiterating his interest in the school (including specifics about why he'd like to go there) and giving an update about what he's been doing -- accomplishments and the like -- since he initially sent in his application. Two pages, max.
posted by buriedpaul at 7:12 PM on March 26

Also, if he gets off the waitlist and is admitted without any sort of scholarship, by all means, he should talk to admissions, or whoever deals with those, and see if they have any scholarship money left over. I asked the law school shortly after I was admitted because I saw a posting on a website by a girl who had a full ride to my school but was not going to accept, so I knew that they had at least $30k that was not going to be used and I got some money.
posted by miss meg at 9:09 PM on March 26