wait list movement

[Anonymous]

Yale announced today that its class is already full and it's closing the waitlist.

[Anonymous]

Do schools notify kids on Saturdays about waitlist movement or is it just M-F?

[Anonymous]

ND waitlist closed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One or two doesn't begin to make a dent in these waitlists. VT waitlisted 15,000 kids. How many got off of that waitlist? Does anyone know? I doubt they'll ever say the honest truth. Waitlists were used to imply hope and all they did was deceive students into thinking they had a chance. USA Today did a great article on it this week.

This is silly. These stats are reported on the colleges' common data sets every year. For admission in Fall 2020, VT offered a place on the waiting list to 10,800 students, 6990 accepted a spot on the waiting list, and ultimately 3959 were admitted (57%).

The stats for Fall 2021 will be reported out next year, so you can satisfy your curiosity then.

VT hasn't been transparent at all this application season. And are they going to report how many people deferred their admission and how that impacted this years stats. You obviously don't know what this has been like for students applying to VT this year. There is not way they took 4000 kids this year off the waitlist. No way! When those numbers do come out you're going to see maybe they offered 200-300 kids a spot and I guarantee many are OOS. The admissions department at VT has changed admissions so much. I won't go into further detail, but being in Northern Virginia high schools doesn't help you much at all. It's ridiculous and I can see why this person wanted to know the stats.

I get that you're exercised about this, but the point above still stands: VT will report out its most recent waitlist data on its common data set as it does every year. They will not, as PP charged above, bury this info like it's some dirty, shameful secret.

These hysterical claims that colleges haven't been transparent, that things have been completely upended, that we don't know how terrible this has been....I have a high school senior, so I'm not just an outside observer. But I also think what's being missed here is that colleges themselves didn't know what was happening and so there isnt a way to be transparent. They didn't know whether their normal yield rates would hold, so didn't know how many students to admit. They didn't know whether they'd still be worrying about covid in September 2021, and whether they'd have another big chunk of freshmen deferring. This is not some grand scheme to screw their applicants.

If you are so sure that VT isn't taking anybody off the waitlist this year, then stop waiting on them! Pick a different school. This was a bizarre, anomalous year in every way, but being on the waitlist has always sucked and has always been an exercise in frustration for most kids. Just put an end to the suffering: Tell your kid it's time to pick a college and move on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seems to me that the schools are causing much of their own problems. They don't want to release kids and close the waitlist because they might need to pull from it yet their own lack of transparency about their numbers causes other schools to do the same thing. It is a Catch-22.

This is not a "problem" for schools. They are dealing with their waitlists the way they always have-- keeping them to fill holes as they arise. And it's May 15! Do schools normally close their waitlist in mid-May? I don't think so.

[Anonymous]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-you-should-get-off-that-wait-list-now/

An article about the futility of waiting on the waitlist.... published in 2012. Some things haven't changed.

[Anonymous]

DS got email saying on extended waitlist until 6/30—-Georgetown.

[Anonymous]

Oh, that's what they're calling it now: "extended waitlist"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems to me that the schools are causing much of their own problems. They don't want to release kids and close the waitlist because they might need to pull from it yet their own lack of transparency about their numbers causes other schools to do the same thing. It is a Catch-22.

This is not a "problem" for schools. They are dealing with their waitlists the way they always have-- keeping them to fill holes as they arise. And it's May 15! Do schools normally close their waitlist in mid-May? I don't think so.

What are you talking about? Of course it is a "problem" for schools when they are getting criticized for how they run their waitlists. If you don't think it is being talked about at the schools then you're completely out of touch. But that is no surprise given your post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems to me that the schools are causing much of their own problems. They don't want to release kids and close the waitlist because they might need to pull from it yet their own lack of transparency about their numbers causes other schools to do the same thing. It is a Catch-22.

This is not a "problem" for schools. They are dealing with their waitlists the way they always have-- keeping them to fill holes as they arise. And it's May 15! Do schools normally close their waitlist in mid-May? I don't think so.

What are you talking about? Of course it is a "problem" for schools when they are getting criticized for how they run their waitlists. If you don't think it is being talked about at the schools then you're completely out of touch. But that is no surprise given your post.

A "problem" with no real solution (what exactly would you have VT do?) and no likely impact on the school (do you think this waitlist teeth gnashing will affect them? The most likely outcome is more ED applications next year, which is a dream come true for a college).

Waitlists exist for one reason only-- because they are useful for the college. They are not designed to serve the needs of applicants.

[Anonymous]

What are the deadlines to request a gap year? Maybe they are waiting to see how many kids want a break and then they will fill in those spots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What are the deadlines to request a gap year? Maybe they are waiting to see how many kids want a break and then they will fill in those spots.

Gap years will be back down to a minimum this year.

[Anonymous]

More than one kid at my dd’s school got off the Boston College waitlist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP here. I am a little bitter, but thrilled with where he’s headed—UDel. He was more than qualified with grades and test scores that are above the 75th percentile, a heartfelt, deeply personal essay and activities that reflect his passions. He was crushed by the waitlist, but eventually got over it. They played the yield-protection game and messed with the heads of kids who decided to commit to honors programs at flagship public universities instead of having their parents pay full-freight to a 75k a year school, after a regular acceptance would have brought sufficient financial aid (according the the NPC) to actually attend.

Why not admit the most qualified kids right away and then pull from the waitlist? I think the pandemic has a lot less to do with the application surge at many of these schools. The common app and influx of full-freight international kids is the better explanation.

The only way colleges can retake control of the process is to quit the common app and make it harder to apply to 20 schools. If a kid has to invest more time in each app, schools will know the kid has put thought into which schools they are applying to and are serious about the possibility of attending.

I completely agree with you. If we're ditching test scores, might as well ditch the common app with it.

[Anonymous]

It is so efficient for all schools to use the same application.
You are being short-sighted and selfish.

And believe me, the parents obsessed with selectivity will just jump through as many hoops as the schools come up with. (Or pay someone to jump thru for their kid).

Ridiculous to suggest they do away with a common app.