Ivy Waitlist

[Anonymous]

My DD was WL at a couple Ivies. Got admitted to a fantastic high ranked SLAC. Told her that’s it, fall in love with the school that wants you. Holding out hope for a spot off an Ivy WL is an exercise in futility. To tell your kid anything else is poor parenting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do they ever accept if a child didn’t submit a LOCI? DC is on the waitlist for Princeton and hasn’t submitted one.

Why didn't they submit? This seems like step one.

Received a full ride to another great college after accepting a spot on Princeton’s waitlist. I just wonder if they can still be accepted for my bragging rights (the child doesn’t care). I also wonder if all the kids (especially the first generation ones) know to submit a LOCI. It doesn’t seem that colleges explicitly instruct the waitlisted kids to submit those.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DC is on a couple Ivy waitlists and it's ridiculous. I know that the likelihood is slim to none, but I still hold out some hope. It's a real schizo state to be in. It makes me question why Ivy's need such a buffer to protect their yield??? And yet, here we are, trying to get in. Ugh. I wish there were some college admissions reform that provides feedback as to why your DC did not get in. I mean they spend so much time on their applications, ECs, grades, etc...I think it's the least colleges can do! Venting.

Pehaps a parental problem?

Concur. I wrote that post. I need to find a new circle of 'friends'. One that is less competitive

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DC is on a couple Ivy waitlists and it's ridiculous. I know that the likelihood is slim to none, but I still hold out some hope. It's a real schizo state to be in. It makes me question why Ivy's need such a buffer to protect their yield??? And yet, here we are, trying to get in. Ugh. I wish there were some college admissions reform that provides feedback as to why your DC did not get in. I mean they spend so much time on their applications, ECs, grades, etc...I think it's the least colleges can do! Venting.

Your DC didn't get in because most Ivy's have 40-50K applications for ~1500 freshman spots. I'd argue 95%+ of those students are "Highly Qualified"/would make ideal part of the freshman class. With acceptance rates below 7%, all your stats/ec/grades/essays really do is get you a lottery ticket; then it's the luck of the draw after that. So there is likely no real reason anyone could provide. It's simply a mathematical equation, with less than 7% acceptances, there will be 93% disappointed, and 95% of those 93% are "highly qualified" candidates. This is the same at most T20-30 schools.
The schools do WL to manage their yield. But for most Ivy's, they take ~50% from ED, and then defer 60-80% of the ED applicants. This provides them a pool of "highly qualified" candidates who are extremely likely to say yes and attend if offered admission in RD. They don't publish #s for this, but I'd speculate that another 25%+ of the freshman classes are filled with ED deferrals offered admission in RD round. So right there you have 75% of the class filled with essentially a guarantee the student will attend. For a freshman class of 1500, that means only 375 slots are really "up in the air". Since the school has statistics which tell them how many students they need to offer a spot to yield 375 acceptances, there isn't much error. So really not much need for drawing from the WL.

Just check out the CDS for Harvard. 2020-2021: Admission offers: 2015
Enrolled Freshman: 1407
They took nobody from the WL.
For Class of 2026 there were 740 accepted ED. That leaves only 660 slots for RD and I'd assume 330-350 will come from ED deferrals.
Simply put, they rarely need to use the WL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do they ever accept if a child didn’t submit a LOCI? DC is on the waitlist for Princeton and hasn’t submitted one.

Why didn't they submit? This seems like step one.

Received a full ride to another great college after accepting a spot on Princeton’s waitlist. I just wonder if they can still be accepted for my bragging rights (the child doesn’t care). I also wonder if all the kids (especially the first generation ones) know to submit a LOCI. It doesn’t seem that colleges explicitly instruct the waitlisted kids to submit those.

My kid got waitlisted at an ivy and didn’t get a full ride to another great college. It burns to know that people like you are staying on wait lists just so you (the parent!) can have bragging rights if they call you. Why not let Your kid withdraw from the Princeton waitlist so some kid who might actually go will have a better chance?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do they ever accept if a child didn’t submit a LOCI? DC is on the waitlist for Princeton and hasn’t submitted one.

Why didn't they submit? This seems like step one.

Received a full ride to another great college after accepting a spot on Princeton’s waitlist. I just wonder if they can still be accepted for my bragging rights (the child doesn’t care). I also wonder if all the kids (especially the first generation ones) know to submit a LOCI. It doesn’t seem that colleges explicitly instruct the waitlisted kids to submit those.

My kid got waitlisted at an ivy and didn’t get a full ride to another great college. It burns to know that people like you are staying on wait lists just so you (the parent!) can have bragging rights if they call you. Why not let Your kid withdraw from the Princeton waitlist so some kid who might actually go will have a better chance?

DP. I get that you're upset but if pp's kid declines the waitlist spot, they move to someone else. They won't have open spots go unfilled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do they ever accept if a child didn’t submit a LOCI? DC is on the waitlist for Princeton and hasn’t submitted one.

Why didn't they submit? This seems like step one.

Received a full ride to another great college after accepting a spot on Princeton’s waitlist. I just wonder if they can still be accepted for my bragging rights (the child doesn’t care). I also wonder if all the kids (especially the first generation ones) know to submit a LOCI. It doesn’t seem that colleges explicitly instruct the waitlisted kids to submit those.

My kid got waitlisted at an ivy and didn’t get a full ride to another great college. It burns to know that people like you are staying on wait lists just so you (the parent!) can have bragging rights if they call you. Why not let Your kid withdraw from the Princeton waitlist so some kid who might actually go will have a better chance?

DP. I get that you're upset but if pp's kid declines the waitlist spot, they move to someone else. They won't have open spots go unfilled.

Yes, DC will decline. They actually declined a waitlist spot with a lower Ivy right away but kept Princeton.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do they ever accept if a child didn’t submit a LOCI? DC is on the waitlist for Princeton and hasn’t submitted one.

Why didn't they submit? This seems like step one.

Received a full ride to another great college after accepting a spot on Princeton’s waitlist. I just wonder if they can still be accepted for my bragging rights (the child doesn’t care). I also wonder if all the kids (especially the first generation ones) know to submit a LOCI. It doesn’t seem that colleges explicitly instruct the waitlisted kids to submit those.

your post really doesn't make sense

[Anonymous]

Data for Dartmouth in last three years:

19-20 -- 2150 offered WL - O admitted
20-21 -- 2661 offered WL - 95 admitted
21-22 -- 2669 offered WL - O admitted

Seriously do not understand why schools like Dartmouth offer WL to so many -- I guess they do because they can -- there is no downside to the school as they have greater pool of talent to draw from to fine tune their class. But do you need to offer 2600 to fill on average about 30 slots? Maybe they think it of it as a softer form rejection but it also distracts applicants from otherwise fully committing themselves mentally to the school to which they will attend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Data for Dartmouth in last three years:

19-20 -- 2150 offered WL - O admitted
20-21 -- 2661 offered WL - 95 admitted
21-22 -- 2669 offered WL - O admitted

Seriously do not understand why schools like Dartmouth offer WL to so many -- I guess they do because they can -- there is no downside to the school as they have greater pool of talent to draw from to fine tune their class. But do you need to offer 2600 to fill on average about 30 slots? Maybe they think it of it as a softer form rejection but it also distracts applicants from otherwise fully committing themselves mentally to the school to which they will attend.

Well said!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The wait list is a certificate of merit. You were close, but you didn't win.

''

Not necessarily. It really depends on the school and how well they predicted yield. As PPs have said, I would go to the CC threads for individual colleges and also reference the CDS for the past few years. Last year's CDS will probably be bad because many schools underestimated who would accept admission (of admitted students) and overenrolled. Things could change if they corrected their calculations. Who knows.

But, I don't get why people continually like to weigh in saying WL is just a "you came close." It is what it says it is, a wait list. Some places have likely little movement. Some years calculations have been off. It is fair to say that they clearly WL far more people than they will ever possibly admit.

How is this any different than "you were close, but you didn't win"?

Seriously? Because you might still be offered a place. It depends on the situation of each school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Data for Dartmouth in last three years:

19-20 -- 2150 offered WL - O admitted
20-21 -- 2661 offered WL - 95 admitted
21-22 -- 2669 offered WL - O admitted

Seriously do not understand why schools like Dartmouth offer WL to so many -- I guess they do because they can -- there is no downside to the school as they have greater pool of talent to draw from to fine tune their class. But do you need to offer 2600 to fill on average about 30 slots? Maybe they think it of it as a softer form rejection but it also distracts applicants from otherwise fully committing themselves mentally to the school to which they will attend.

That is exactly why. They don't just need to offer a slot to 5 people. Come May 1, they look at the number of students in engineering/Russian/French/Physics/etc and the number of Male/Female and your racial background/socioeconomic background and many more and then fill what "category" they are looking to complete from the WL. The goal is to balance out the freshman class and have an "ideal" class, not 90% males or 75% engineers, etc. They want people from every state, lots of countries, different majors to make a well rounded class

Also, while many get on the Waitlists, I suspect many do it "just to see" but have no real intention of going. Most kids pick a school and get excited about that. Once they go down that road, many do not really want to go to the WL school. So Dartmouth (and others) need a large WL to ensure they have a full class come August/Sept.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do they ever accept if a child didn’t submit a LOCI? DC is on the waitlist for Princeton and hasn’t submitted one.

Why didn't they submit? This seems like step one.

Received a full ride to another great college after accepting a spot on Princeton’s waitlist. I just wonder if they can still be accepted for my bragging rights (the child doesn’t care). I also wonder if all the kids (especially the first generation ones) know to submit a LOCI. It doesn’t seem that colleges explicitly instruct the waitlisted kids to submit those.

My kid got waitlisted at an ivy and didn’t get a full ride to another great college. It burns to know that people like you are staying on wait lists just so you (the parent!) can have bragging rights if they call you. Why not let Your kid withdraw from the Princeton waitlist so some kid who might actually go will have a better chance?

I was thinking the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do they ever accept if a child didn’t submit a LOCI? DC is on the waitlist for Princeton and hasn’t submitted one.

Why didn't they submit? This seems like step one.

Received a full ride to another great college after accepting a spot on Princeton’s waitlist. I just wonder if they can still be accepted for my bragging rights (the child doesn’t care). I also wonder if all the kids (especially the first generation ones) know to submit a LOCI. It doesn’t seem that colleges explicitly instruct the waitlisted kids to submit those.

My kid got waitlisted at an ivy and didn’t get a full ride to another great college. It burns to know that people like you are staying on wait lists just so you (the parent!) can have bragging rights if they call you. Why not let Your kid withdraw from the Princeton waitlist so some kid who might actually go will have a better chance?

I was thinking the same.

Wouldn’t Princeton just move to the next name on the list? It’s not like they’d say “well Jimmy said no and even though we have these couple hundred other kids on the list I think we’re good here”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DC is on a couple Ivy waitlists and it's ridiculous. I know that the likelihood is slim to none, but I still hold out some hope. It's a real schizo state to be in. It makes me question why Ivy's need such a buffer to protect their yield??? And yet, here we are, trying to get in. Ugh. I wish there were some college admissions reform that provides feedback as to why your DC did not get in. I mean they spend so much time on their applications, ECs, grades, etc...I think it's the least colleges can do! Venting.

Pehaps a parental problem?

I see what you did there.