Reply to What are your chances on the waitlist?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]So, if you get put on a waitlist at a desirable school, what are your chances for actually getting in if you don't have a sibling? And maybe to ask a little differently:  what number do you need to be on the waitlist to even have a shot? Is 1 almost a sure thing? If you're number 10 should you even bother? We're trying to get a PK4 spot for DD, but our preschool needs to know the first week in April if we're going to re-enroll for next year. I guess it will depend on the school, but let's presume it's a highly coveted one?[/quote]

I try to think about it like this.

If you are #10 on the wait list, they need to speak to 9 other families before even calling you for 1 seat. While it is possible that those 9 families might have been accepted somewhere else, the lottery attempts to match individual families with their top-choice schools. If someone is still on a waiting list for the school in question, that is because they prefer it to the other schools they listed, including potentially a school they have already accepted a place at. If I was accepted at my #12 school and suddenly got a call from my #1 school, I would not be declining that spot absent changed circumstances. At a highly coveted school, people will likely have back up plans, but they will happily abandon those plans if they get what they really want. I would personally find it unlikely that you'd get a seat at a highly coveted school with a waitlist number greater than 3, and I certainly would not make financial decisions based on presumed acceptance at a school where I had a waitlist number greater than 5. It's just way more likely that the people ahead of you will jump at a spot that becomes available.

That said, you can look at previous years' lottery data to see how many students with your preference category were admitted from the waitlist. [/quote]

Yes, this is what common sense told me too. I just wasn't sure if there was something I was missing, since people seem to say the waitlist truly "moves." It's not worth the gamble at the end of the day. We'll see what number we get in a month. [/quote]

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