The Annual Waitlist / Waiting Pool Reality Check Thread

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:While I don't have admissions data to back this up, I would venture to say that the top schools likely don't over-admit because there is a higher likelihood for someone to accept. If you don't want to end up in an over enrolled state, its smarter to admit for the spaces you have and pull from the waitlist as spots open up. That's why I would tell people that deciding to lose all hope (and therefore not express pro-active interest in continuing the process) is a mistake. Worst case it doesn't help, but best case you get one of the slots when someone drops out.

Nope.

All schools admit more students than they have room for because they know that not everyone accepts the invitation to enroll.

They are guided by this by years and even decades of seeing results. If they miss their “yield” estimate on the low side by a few, they’ll go to the Wait POOL. The Wait POOL is a pain to administer because offers of admission have to be made serially. There’s no guarantee Wait POOL offers will be accepted. Many of these people have moved on. Some to schools they prefer anyway. Some stung by the Wait Pool assignment who have decided that they prefer a school that would accept them on the first pass, which suggests a better “fit”.

You may think your approach would be smarter, but none of the local schools would agree. That isn’t they way it works and would be an administrative nightmare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:While I don't have admissions data to back this up, I would venture to say that the top schools likely don't over-admit because there is a higher likelihood for someone to accept.

This is mathematically impossible unless you assume there are literally zero applicants getting admitted to multiple top schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While I don't have admissions data to back this up, I would venture to say that the top schools likely don't over-admit because there is a higher likelihood for someone to accept.

This is mathematically impossible unless you assume there are literally zero applicants getting admitted to multiple top schools.

This is, of course, totally incorrect. It's akin to saying that Harvard or Yale as 100% yield. They don't. Harvard has like an 80% yield, Yale 70%. Safe to say that St. Albans, GDS, Sidwell, Maret, Holton, NCS, Holton, Potomac all have yields substantially below 80% and probably closer to 50-60%. Again, many families are applying to many of these and getting into more than one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While I don't have admissions data to back this up, I would venture to say that the top schools likely don't over-admit because there is a higher likelihood for someone to accept. If you don't want to end up in an over enrolled state, its smarter to admit for the spaces you have and pull from the waitlist as spots open up. That's why I would tell people that deciding to lose all hope (and therefore not express pro-active interest in continuing the process) is a mistake. Worst case it doesn't help, but best case you get one of the slots when someone drops out.

Nope.

All schools admit more students than they have room for because they know that not everyone accepts the invitation to enroll.

They are guided by this by years and even decades of seeing results. If they miss their “yield” estimate on the low side by a few, they’ll go to the Wait POOL. The Wait POOL is a pain to administer because offers of admission have to be made serially. There’s no guarantee Wait POOL offers will be accepted. Many of these people have moved on. Some to schools they prefer anyway. Some stung by the Wait Pool assignment who have decided that they prefer a school that would accept them on the first pass, which suggests a better “fit”.

You may think your approach would be smarter, but none of the local schools would agree. That isn’t they way it works and would be an administrative nightmare.

How long do they give someone from the wait pool to consider and accept a spot? Both verbally and via contract signing?

[Anonymous]

Typically 48 hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While I don't have admissions data to back this up, I would venture to say that the top schools likely don't over-admit because there is a higher likelihood for someone to accept.

This is mathematically impossible unless you assume there are literally zero applicants getting admitted to multiple top schools.

This is, of course, totally incorrect. It's akin to saying that Harvard or Yale as 100% yield. They don't. Harvard has like an 80% yield, Yale 70%. Safe to say that St. Albans, GDS, Sidwell, Maret, Holton, NCS, Holton, Potomac all have yields substantially below 80% and probably closer to 50-60%. Again, many families are applying to many of these and getting into more than one.

Can't speak to the others, but as to Potomac this is incorrect. It has a very high yield - well over 80%. (I believe it is approximately 90%, if I recall correctly.)

[Anonymous]

As to timing to accept after wait pool call, we were called on a Friday by one of the top independents and they needed a response by Monday (which included signing contract and providing deposit). We had applied for an "non-entry" year.

As to the PP's statement that stories like ours give "false hope." I disagree. I think people know deep down whether their DC is honestly a strong candidate. If your DC is, call the school and let them know they are your first choice and you will accept if offered a spot. It does help during their consideration of who to pull from the wait pool, if a spot opens. The fact is, though, you are literally waiting for others to reject their offers. Unfortunately, no one can predict how likely that is to happen - but it does happen.

Good luck to everyone waiting to hear!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While I don't have admissions data to back this up, I would venture to say that the top schools likely don't over-admit because there is a higher likelihood for someone to accept.

This is mathematically impossible unless you assume there are literally zero applicants getting admitted to multiple top schools.

This is, of course, totally incorrect. It's akin to saying that Harvard or Yale as 100% yield. They don't. Harvard has like an 80% yield, Yale 70%. Safe to say that St. Albans, GDS, Sidwell, Maret, Holton, NCS, Holton, Potomac all have yields substantially below 80% and probably closer to 50-60%. Again, many families are applying to many of these and getting into more than one.

Can't speak to the others, but as to Potomac this is incorrect. It has a very high yield - well over 80%. (I believe it is approximately 90%, if I recall correctly.)

I find this hard to believe. Potomac is a great school, but while the top preference for many in Northern Virginia, it is often a backup to the NWDC schools for those in DC and MoCo. There is absolutely no chance that their yield is 90% as many of their accepted students get into NWDC schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As to timing to accept after wait pool call, we were called on a Friday by one of the top independents and they needed a response by Monday (which included signing contract and providing deposit). We had applied for an "non-entry" year.

As to the PP's statement that stories like ours give "false hope." I disagree. I think people know deep down whether their DC is honestly a strong candidate. If your DC is, call the school and let them know they are your first choice and you will accept if offered a spot. It does help during their consideration of who to pull from the wait pool, if a spot opens. The fact is, though, you are literally waiting for others to reject their offers. Unfortunately, no one can predict how likely that is to happen - but it does happen.

Good luck to everyone waiting to hear!

Being a strong candidate is table stakes for most of these schools. While I’m sure there are some long shots, most applicants have great grades, interesting extracurriculars and other attractive features. At a certain point, it’s a crapshoot among equally qualified candidates who may fill a specific gender, race, geographic, athletic, musical, artistic or even philanthropic need.

And you’re not “literally waiting for others to reject their offers,” you’re waiting for more people than they have calculated that are likely to reject their offers, based on years of experience, to reject their offers.

[Anonymous]

I’ll agree that a 80% or 90% yield rate is highly unlikely.

But one way schools can and do affect yield rates is to heavily weight a high likelihood of attending in the Admissions process. This is one reason they want to know “Where else are you applying?”

Those who refuse to answer this question or who artfully dodge it take the risk of having the Admissions people assign a probability of attending if accepted number to their application.

Offering acceptance to those who are extremely likely or almost guaranteed to attend drives up yield rates.

It also increases the likelihood that the student and family will be happy at the school over the time they are there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter got off the waiting list. That year one of my child was admitted and the other wait listed. I immediately enrolled the one who was admitted (as this was the top choice for the child waitlisted and the admitted child was too young to care). Then, I made sure to tell the school the following things: 1) I wanted to keep the kids together if possible. 2) The school was the waitlisted child's first choice and we would take a slot if one became available. 3) The school was a top choice for our family because it aligned with our values and what I wanted for my children's education (which was an extra bonus because my child loved the school). We got the call on the day contracts were due telling us that they could offer the second child a spot. The child who was waitlisted is doing really well at the school and it ended up being great. Had they not gotten off the waitlist, we likely would have tried a few years later in another entrance year, but glad we didn't have to do that.

Exciting! Great strategy

We had a similar situation and used a similar plan. We actually got 2 kids off the waitlist. I also tried to keep their bames in the mix by sending updates when appropriate on accomplishments like honor roll, getting into NJHS, sports achievements. It was hard to balance just a little update from being annoying but it seemed to work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ll agree that a 80% or 90% yield rate is highly unlikely.

But one way schools can and do affect yield rates is to heavily weight a high likelihood of attending in the Admissions process. This is one reason they want to know “Where else are you applying?”

Those who refuse to answer this question or who artfully dodge it take the risk of having the Admissions people assign a probability of attending if accepted number to their application.

Offering acceptance to those who are extremely likely or almost guaranteed to attend drives up yield rates.

It also increases the likelihood that the student and family will be happy at the school over the time they are there.

Actually, it is near 90% for US. For lower grades like K, yes, much lower yield. Perhaps 70% is likely. At K, everyone applies at multiple places as there are tons of open spots.

For 9th, much fewer spots. Perhaps 30 or so.

About 6-10 will be recruited athletes. So those are a lock.


The other 20 or so spots are up for grabs. Admissions will likely only offer 20 people admissions. If 17-18 accept, then they will fill the final open spots from wait pool. One year they offered like 24-25 spots and I think 22 took them and evened up with a class that was too large.

So it depends on grade. But yeah. 80-90% is reasonable.

[Anonymous]

What does a 5 star athlete need to do to get off the waiting list?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll agree that a 80% or 90% yield rate is highly unlikely.

But one way schools can and do affect yield rates is to heavily weight a high likelihood of attending in the Admissions process. This is one reason they want to know “Where else are you applying?”

Those who refuse to answer this question or who artfully dodge it take the risk of having the Admissions people assign a probability of attending if accepted number to their application.

Offering acceptance to those who are extremely likely or almost guaranteed to attend drives up yield rates.

It also increases the likelihood that the student and family will be happy at the school over the time they are there.

Actually, it is near 90% for US. For lower grades like K, yes, much lower yield. Perhaps 70% is likely. At K, everyone applies at multiple places as there are tons of open spots.

For 9th, much fewer spots. Perhaps 30 or so.

About 6-10 will be recruited athletes. So those are a lock.


The other 20 or so spots are up for grabs. Admissions will likely only offer 20 people admissions. If 17-18 accept, then they will fill the final open spots from wait pool. One year they offered like 24-25 spots and I think 22 took them and evened up with a class that was too large.

So it depends on grade. But yeah. 80-90% is reasonable.

If what you are saying is true, then what it says is that the Admissions staff puts a tremendous amount of emphasis on "Likeliness to attend if accepted". They offer admissions only to those who are almost guaranteed to attend if accepted.

They don't take a chance on good candidates they aren't sure of or almost sure of.

I guess that's possible.

The success in the "recruited athletes" group is also remarkable. Of course they aren't really "recruited". But here again, they'd have to identify athletes they wanted and get them to apply and then be certain they would accept if offered a spot.

To do that they'd have to have quite a recruiting effort to identify a large enough group, encourage them to apply and then sort through those until they had a group that was sure to attend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While I don't have admissions data to back this up, I would venture to say that the top schools likely don't over-admit because there is a higher likelihood for someone to accept. If you don't want to end up in an over enrolled state, its smarter to admit for the spaces you have and pull from the waitlist as spots open up. That's why I would tell people that deciding to lose all hope (and therefore not express pro-active interest in continuing the process) is a mistake. Worst case it doesn't help, but best case you get one of the slots when someone drops out.

Nope.

All schools admit more students than they have room for because they know that not everyone accepts the invitation to enroll.

They are guided by this by years and even decades of seeing results. If they miss their “yield” estimate on the low side by a few, they’ll go to the Wait POOL. The Wait POOL is a pain to administer because offers of admission have to be made serially. There’s no guarantee Wait POOL offers will be accepted. Many of these people have moved on. Some to schools they prefer anyway. Some stung by the Wait Pool assignment who have decided that they prefer a school that would accept them on the first pass, which suggests a better “fit”.

You may think your approach would be smarter, but none of the local schools would agree. That isn’t they way it works and would be an administrative nightmare.

How long do they give someone from the wait pool to consider and accept a spot? Both verbally and via contract signing?

We got off the waitlist of one school the day of acceptance deadline and they tried to give me by 5pm or whatever it was for everyone else and I told them that would be impossible, I needed to discuss this with the family. They then extended it until end of the weekend.