A "humane waiting list"

[MidwestMom2Kids_1]

<p>From the 5/15 Plain Dealer
[Colleges</a> in limbo as applicants wait to hear from Ivy League](<a href=“http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1210840215106190.xml&coll=2&thispage=2]Colleges”>http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1210840215106190.xml&coll=2&thispage=2)
Middle of the article:</p>

<p>

Mabel Freeman, assistant vice president for undergraduate admissions at Ohio State University, said she’s not a fan of waiting lists because they tend to extend the anxiety for families. OSU didn’t have one last year, but this year has created what Freeman terms “a humane waiting list.” </p>

<p>Here’s the deal: Go on the list and you have a chance to start fall quarter. But you’re guaranteed a spot if you start in the summer or winter instead and help the university avoid an autumn crunch.</p>

<p>About 600 applicants got the offer, and 196 of them said yes. </p>

<p>OSU has a target of 6,000 and commitments from about 6,600, which suggests the final count will be close, Freeman said. That makes it unlikely she’ll take people from the list for fall quarter, but she and her staff are still trying to calculate the domino effect from other schools – “like everybody else.”

</p>

[mathmom]

<p>That’s nice, but mostly I just wish colleges were more upfront about the size of the waiting list and how many kids get off them. Mathson was only on one waiting list last year, but my recollection is that the letter said something on the order of. “We have XXXX number of students on the waiting list. In the past we have been able to accept between X and XX students off the waiting list.” It made it quite clear that the chances were low, but also quite variable from year to year.</p>

[JHS]

<p>One has to be pretty self-deceiving not to understand that a waitlist spot is at best a lottery ticket. I don’t think that information is particularly obscure or sophisticated. I think a lot of 18-year-olds are pretty self-deceiving.</p>

<p>As to whether colleges’ civic duty should compel them to offer fewer 18-year-olds the opportunity for self-deception, I really don’t know. It’s hard to believe that most of them really need 4-digit waitlists, but I suspect that the various needs a waitlist serves will always produce waitlists that are many times the number of applicants who could possibly be accepted from them.</p>