Anonymous wrote:Full pays to the front..........

Colleges admit this is the case.

Anonymous wrote:Full pays to the front..........

Makes complete sense.

Full pays to the front..........

Not an admissions officer, but have noticed that kids getting off UVA list tend to be kids deferred from ED as opposed to EA or RD. Makes sense, because those kids more likely to accept.

I worked in admissions....agree w pp AO. We did put a lot of kids on that basically had no chance as a soft no. For example, UVA's WL is bigger than the entire freshman class. But the kids that have a chance are divided into the buckets where the school's needs are. Does the business school need males? Does the architecture school need kids from CA? The analogy of building an orchestra from Jeff Selingo's Who Gets in and Why is a little far-fetched (but worth a read). Schools aren't really looking for the oboe player but the theory is spot on. They are filling holes. In-state vs. oos, male/female balance, geographic reach, major/school holes, full-pay, etc. Then they choose the kids they like best that make sense within the context of their high schools to fill the institutional priorities. Thats said, I am perplexed by some WL offers I have seen this year from several sub 20% admit schools taking kids off the WL that are not particularly qualified compared to other kids. Lots of nuance and subjectivity, but that's the recipe.

Anonymous wrote:Many schools explicitly ask for no LOCI or checking on your status.

Basically signaling either the WL is not real so they dont' want to read your letters, or it's really small and they don't need your letter.

Anonymous wrote:I am a former admissions officer. At the school where I worked (this was a while ago), our dean first identified gaps based on gender and state and asked the territory manager for that state to pull files of all kids who met those criteria who chose to stay on the WL and also had some kind of engagement/contact with our office after learning the WL decision. So for example, asking the person in charge of Wisconsin to pull all the girls from Wisconsin with contact; asking the person in charge of Nebraska to pull all the boys from Nebraska with contact, and so forth. Then they had to narrow by major and ultimately they just picked who they liked best from the smaller group.

This is what I have heard from another AO. Your kid needs to be in the right demographics (i.e., a group that underyielded). We know of multiple boys from private schools in Texas who got into Brown last year off the WL.

Many schools explicitly ask for no LOCI or checking on your status.

Anonymous wrote:Out of curiosity, what would engagement/contact look like after being waitlisted? I'm assuming students have to accept the wait list (opt in) or is it just automatic with no response from student?

Opting in, sending a letter or continued interest, etc.

Out of curiosity, what would engagement/contact look like after being waitlisted? I'm assuming students have to accept the wait list (opt in) or is it just automatic with no response from student?

I am a former admissions officer. At the school where I worked (this was a while ago), our dean first identified gaps based on gender and state and asked the territory manager for that state to pull files of all kids who met those criteria who chose to stay on the WL and also had some kind of engagement/contact with our office after learning the WL decision. So for example, asking the person in charge of Wisconsin to pull all the girls from Wisconsin with contact; asking the person in charge of Nebraska to pull all the boys from Nebraska with contact, and so forth. Then they had to narrow by major and ultimately they just picked who they liked best from the smaller group.

Anonymous wrote:Ask on all the FB groups with former AO.
Not here.

What are those? Could be interesting for many things I imagine

Watch Dr Hoffman YouTube video on this.

Ask on all the FB groups with former AO.
Not here.

There was an article today in the Wall St. Journal about waitlists and how some schools put thousands of kids on them with no hope of getting in. That's not new information exactly, but it did make me wonder. A question for people who have actually worked in admissions (if there are any here). How does getting kids off the wait list really work? How are kids who are ultimately offered slots chosen? I can't imagine that it's just a ranked list, which wouldn't be practical. What makes one kid get off the list while the others don't? So how does it work? Asking for real knowledge, not speculation please.