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<p>EXACTLY. A meaningful wait list. Not a “we didn’t want to have to tell you no, that’s too hurtful, so we’ll put you on a WL along with a few thousand others.”</p>
<p>I told both my daughters to stay on wait lists if they wanted but to focus on and start planning for the bird(s) in the hand. Wait lists are generally the longest of long shots and thus not worth much mental energy. You can worry about the wait list if and when you get off it. In the meantime, pay attention to the schools showing you the love and not the ones still playing hard to get.</p>
<p>S2 got on two waitlists. One he liked a lot, but he said he’s just not sure he would take it over his two acceptances, so he is going to let it go in the hopes that someone else may pick up the seat. Expect those postcards will go out Tuesday night when he gets back from visiting one of his top two choices.</p>
<p>S1 got on one waitlist and turned it down immediately.</p>
<p>My son was waitlisted at his #1 choice - but it came with the advice that there usually wasn’t any financial aid available for waitlist students. He wants to stay on the list and I said he could, just to know for sure, but that if he was accepted without any financial aid we wouldn’t be able to send him. We are concentrating on trying to choose between #2 and #3, both gave him generous fin aid offers.</p>
<p>I think colleges wouldn’t use WL’s so much if students applied to fewer schools. It’s idiotic that there are students out there (and here) that apply to 18-20 colleges. C’mon.</p>
<p>As soon as colleges feel more comfortable predicting their yields maybe the size of the wait lists will go down. And I agree, the nervousness over what the yields will look like is a result of students applying to more colleges than they used to.</p>
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<p>Except for a few trophy hunters, I think students would apply to far fewer schools if they could predict with any sort of certainty where they would and wouldn’t be accepted. It’s idiotic that the process is so unpredictable and unknowable that there are students out there that feel compelled to apply to 18-20 colleges in order to find the one best school that will accept them.</p>
<p>Son 1 was wait listed at his first choice – so was a friend. After about two weeks his friend got in off the wait list (different program). Dean of Admissions called him personally to ask him to stay on the wait list. He got a potential financial aid package that would have made it very doable for us. It got to June and the Dean called and told him he was number 1 on the wait list. They finally cut him loose late in July, less then 10 days from when he had to be a campus for the school he had accepted. It was very hard on him – he never really connected with the school he attended freshman year, and he transferred out. He started a transfer app to the school that had wait listed him, but never finished it – I think he didn’t want to go through that all again. We found out later through some reliable sources that it was inside politics, and that there were three or four other kids caught in the same mess. </p>
<p>This was a very rare situation, and I know that most people’s wait list experience will be very different, but I relate it to make a couple points.<br>
1. Do set a deadline, June 1st or so. And stick to it. If he hasn’t made it off by then, drop off the list.<br>
2. Do everything you can to start bonding with the other school – if the wait list comes through your son can still change his mind, but focus on the accepted school.
3. Do take it as a compliment – they do want him, but be realistic, they want a whole bunch of kids more.</p>
<p>Athough it muddies up the decision making process just a wee bit more, after conferring with us regarding the upsides/downsides, our S decided to go on one of his two WL, the one for UPenn. He agreed with us, once this was done, that he would now concentrate in earnest on gathering what info he needed to may a decision on the two finalists of the six schools he was accepted to. </p>
<p>Even this will not be easy. He can go to USC tuition free, and they provide excellent avenues for him to study interdisciplinary science. Northwestern U will mean more $$ for us to pay but it offers two attractive things to him. One, it’s away from home. Two, he was admitted to their honors Integrated Science Program (they seek to yield about 30-35 per class), a very established interdsicplinary science program where he would be among peers.</p>
<p>I think the suggestion of setting a deadline on the WL school is excellent. We haven’t done it yet and will be doing so … or rather, trying to convince S it’s his own idea by slyly asking how long he’d be willing to be on it, and see where the conversation flows.</p>
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<p>They cut him loose meaning they didn’t accept him? lololu, that story is just horrible.</p>
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<p>I totally get him not being able to fill out the transfer application. When my daughter was wait listed at her first choice school I could see it on her face, emotionally she was finished. Everyone told us, try to get her off the waitlist, send in new accomplishments, send in a letter, keep in touch with them. I tried brainstorming with her about what we might do and she just couldn’t face it. She just couldn’t invest anymore emotional energy with them. I knew if we didn’t push we had zero chance to get her off the wait list, but she couldn’t go another step.</p>
<p>Anyway, that story about your son really sucks.</p>
<p>Pea, </p>
<p>Yes, in the end they did not accept him. But interestingly, after deciding to not try to transfer there he went to visit his friend there a couple times and came to the conclusion that it would not have been a very good match for him. He ended up at a school that is no where near the prestige and ranking of the school that rejected him, but he is doing really well, expanding his learning beyond the classroom to the community around him, exploring interests that he may not have had time for in a pressure cooker school, and he has met a lot of kids who have come to their education with some very varied life experiences. It was hard couple of years, but I think he is in a good place now (he is currently studying in Rome and just wrote me to say that this weekend he and his friends “just happened to be driving by France so they had Easter dinner in a French village”.)</p>