Welcome to the waitlist, the No Man’s Land of college admissions. Unlike waiting in line at the deli counter clutching your ticket with 93 printed on it and realizing that they are currently serving number 89, the waitlist in college admissions works differently. There is no order or ranking of students on the list, so contacting admissions to ask where you are on the waitlist is not a productive use of your time. The waitlist is an enrollment management tool used to help a college or university meet its enrollment objectives. Colleges look at prior yield rates, the percentage of accepted students who actually enroll, when admitting students. For example, if a college has a yield rate of 20% and wants a class of 1,000 students, it will accept 5,000 applicants. If the actual yield is lower than predicted, the college will utilize the waitlist to shore-up its freshmen class. As an enrollment management tool, the waitlist is also used to shape the class. If the university wants to expand an academic major, add geographic, socio-economic, ethnic or racial diversity, or increase the trumpet section of the marching band, they will pull students off the waitlist to meet their needs. Although a student’s probability of getting admitted off the waitlist is unpredictable, we do have this happen to students every year.
If you happen to be waitlisted, we offer the following advice. First, make sure that you put an enrollment deposit down at a college to which you were admitted. This is critical. Because you typically won’t come off the waitlist until after the May 1st deposit deadline, you will need to put an enrollment deposit down at another school to reserve your spot. Second, follow the directions given to you by the school that waitlisted you. Some schools want you to simply check a box on your student portal to indicate that you wish to remain on the waitlist and others want you to submit a letter of continued interest. Follow the directions! If the college wants additional information, it is good to include any updates to your academic record or extracurricular curricular activities and why the colleges is a good match for you. It should be brief and highlight new information that wasn’t included in your initial application. Finally, don’t be a nuisance to admissions. Reaching out to your regional admissions representative once is fine, but multiple calls, emails, and fancy chocolates won’t improve your chances. With an overall increase in applications this application cycle, we do anticipate more movement on waitlists this year, so if you happen to be one of the lucky ones, congratulations!