Krazer

I read on the general admissions forum that this year colleges would be using more of their waitlist this year. Can this also be true for UNC-Ch? It would not make sense to me as the economy is down and a lot more people who applied here as safeties are probably going there due to money concerns. Is my reasoning right or will UNC use its waitlist more this year than past years?

heritageballer02

Hey Krazer, I was waitlisted as well. What were your statistics??

economic ninja

Ugh...I am greatly disheartened by what I have read about the "wait list" so far. Apparently, there were 0 accepted on the waitlist last year at UNC.

As for your economic question Krazer, a lot more must be taken into account even to inspect the surface of this issue. For example,lets imagine that it is true that the 'safety' applicant's parents have less money so they choose UNC. We must consider the universities side too. With an economy in recession, they could possibly have to make staff cuts which could mean larger average classroom size or a smaller total available seat count, meaning accepting less students in total. How much does average classroom size matter to the university? This is just one example, in my mind about a dozen or so more factors get involved with waitlisted applicants which come with even more questions attached to them. Here's a few off the top of my head:

Is the government increasing or decreasing scholarship money to universities?
What is the income levels of the families of the the different applicants?
Do wealthier families children usually have higher gpa's and vice versa?
What is the actual data of applicants? (Not the proportions)
Does family income even play a major role at top colleges or are students more likely to take out student loans to attend top schools?
Could past acceptance 'yields' play a role in how aggressive or sheepish admissions officers are to extend acceptance letters this year?
Anyways, there are a lot more but I'd rather not bore you...long story short just looking at one aspect over simplifies the analysis.

My two biggest questions are:

How competitive do transfer students look compared to waitlisted freshman?
Is "wait listed" just a pleasant way of saying "Rejected"?

Either way, continue doing the best you can at your current university because its not where you learn that matters it's what you do with what you learn that makes the difference!

cloying

ninja, they let about 50 people off the waitlist last year.

jimmyduck

I don't think you have your facts straight. Even UNC's waitlist letter reports:

Last year, 1,240 students accepted a place
on the list, and 226 eventually were offered admission. The year before, 934 students accepted a place on the list, and 266
were offered admission.

This is backed up by the report on the Common Data Set
http://oira.unc.edu/images/stories/f..._2007_2008.pdf

Still no guarantee for anyone.

idonotmatch

Jimmy,

Your numbers are based on FRESHMEN who are wait-listed. There isn't any wait-listed information in regards to transfer students.

jimmyduck

I was responding to the original thread which was about waitlists---

economic ninja

Thank you Jimmy, this is just the data I was looking for!

idonotmatch

My fault. I've been so caught up in the transfer decisions and thought we were still talking about transfers.

Krazer

"Hey Krazer, I was waitlisted as well. What were your statistics??"

Hey heritageballer02. My statistics were descent overall.
SAT:
Math: 780
Reading: 610
Writing: 620

SAT Math II: 800
SAT Physics: 710
SAT US history: 650
AP Calculus AB/BC: 5/5
AP Physics C Mech/E&M: 4/4
AP English Lang, US and World History: 3

GPA(when they looked at me):4.45
GPA(with midyear grades): 4.67

I did not do good freshmen and sophomore year and thus it brought down my GPA. I took a lot of APs and all APs this year. My Extracurriculars were descent. I had some community services with balanced academic clubs as well like science olympiad. I also went to a summer program at UPenn. Anyone feel free to post your stats as well.

And for everyone else. I am sorry i forgot to mention this was undergraduate admissions and first year, not transfer. Sorry for any misunderstanding

HannahKon

I emailed a lady in the admissions office and she said that they would be able to release the number of people that accepted a spot on the waitlist as of April 21st. That should hopefully give us a better estimate of our chances.

I do have a friend who was waitlisted at UVA and already pulled off of it.. hopefully that is indicative of how UNC will be.

The lady also said that she expects we will know our final decision before June. I'm assuming if your status as waitlisted doesn't change before school lets out, chances are you'll be denied.

Krazer

oh ok so april 21 is the deadline. Ya that will give us more of picture on this waitlist issue. How many of you guys are instate vs. out of state?

2007mom

my d is in her second year at another school. yesterday a friend at school said that last june she was all set to room with a girl that called and said she had just gotten off the waitlist at unc and would not be able to room with her. once the decision got going, another girl said that she also had a friend that got off the waitlist last year but did not go. i think you will be surprised to see more movement that you expect. my reasoning is this....pardon this reference cause all get so up in arms about it but here goes: getting in oos is so much more difficult that usually those accepted or waitlisted oos are very qualified to get into other elite schools that they may pick over unc. add to that the number of oos kids that counted on fa and now will probably not get it since it is so late in the game. those that needed fa and did not get off the waitlist in time might very well end up going elsewhere. and then there are simply the families that thought the cost would not be an issue but with the economy where it is, cannot commit to this expense and are going a more affordable route. so due to these circumstances, the waitlist may very well end up being used more than ever?