<p>Compared to last year: 136 more applications came in the door this year; 133 fewer were accepted. Stick with the wait list if it’s your top choice. Let them know that.</p>
<p>Be forewarned: The rest of this is pure speculation as to what’s going on in the admission office. It’s just my guess as to what’s happening and how you might react if I’ve made some accurate wild guesses.</p>
<p>Since they intentionally underenrolled, they presumably have a stack ready to go with the waitlist offers that they know they will be making. I’m not sure they’ll need extra meetings to review the merits of applications they’ve already reviewed. My guess is that the real attractiveness will come in the form of being committed to Oberlin. One of the drawbacks of intentionally underenrolling is that people they’d otherwise accept are bleeding off, making plans with the colleges that showed them the love. The faster they can wrap up the process of filling out the class, the less bleeding off they’ll have from that pile of wait list applicants they’re itching to send acceptance letters to. If you’re anywhere in that stack, I think you do yourself the biggest favor by letting them know your intentions. That means they can fill a spot and not have to wait X days for you to reply, etc.</p>