They are showing you your breakdown IF they accept you. It is a very generous thing to do as most schools do not do this for WL. People add themselves to WL having no clue what a school may offer and it is a long drawn out process.
Case is generous if needed, but if it isn’t enough and you wouldn’t go due to the package they offer, they expect you to not go on the WL. If the package is attainable for your family and you still very much want to go to Case, then put yourself on the WL.
It saves a lot of time on your end and theirs.
To be honest, Case has been the best admissions department we have dealt with so far of any school my daughter applied.
@dyinghere Case offers WL the same amount of merit as outright admittances. There are so many students who have the stats to be admitted…but they can’t admit them all.
@bopper Yes, it puts it in a price range we are comfortable with. The question for us is does he have any shot of getting off the WL and is there anything he can do to increase his odds? He is beating himself up for applying for the med program so he wasn’t able to apply ED. My daughter was admitted with $5k less a few years ago.
@zoemurr In the past, Case has taken 4-500 students off the waitlist. But last year they didn’t take any.
It all depends on how many admitted students enroll. Usually they underestimate because they want to ensure all freshman have housing.
From 2016-2017:
Offered place on wait list: 9,293
Number accepting place on wait list: 4,732
Accepted from list: 333
333/4732 = ~7%
In 15-16 it was 518/5,119 - 10%
In 14-15: 792/4670 - 17%
In 04-05: 151/506 - 30%
@zoemurr Case uses their waitlist to 1) Fill up the class but 2) Not overfill…they want to make sure all students have freshman housing. So if you happen to be one of the students on the WL, you are not “punished”. You are eligible for the same merit. If they didn’t offer merit, the only people who would then come would be 1) someone who could afford full price 2) Someone who gets need based aid
Imagine you wanted to put 1000 kids in your class. You admit 2500 because you usually have a 33% yield. So lets say that gets you to 833. But it could have been 800 or could have been 1100. So you go on the low side. Oh, you got 850…so that means you need 250 more. So you offer them at the WL. But you want an English major and that one has high scores so you offer merit.
So why does any student get more merit than another? Because they want to entice that student more.
@bopper But presumably the person Case already admitted is someone they want more than someone they waitlisted. I don’t get why someone on the WL would be offered more (= wanted more) than someone who was admitted. If they were that wanted, why weren’t they just admitted in the first place? This merit aid business is quite confusing to me!
It might be that for some majors it might take more merit to get them to enroll.
A possible scenario:
Lets say you have 400 Biomed applicants and 100 English majors applicants.
So maybe you want 100 Biomed students and 35 english majors.
So maybe you offer some of the Biomeds 15K as their scores are not that much better than the others and there are 300 more to pick from. But from history you know that you need to offer some merit to get people to come. But your school is desirable so you know they probably will enroll.
But for the english major, you offered 50 admittance…but only 30 enrolled. You know from history it might take 30K to get the English major to enroll. So you offer more to that student. Or you have 20 more students who were just as good as the first 50 .
@bopper For the same major/school, if one student gets 20K and another gets 27.5K merit based scholarship, does that indirectly indicate ranking in the WL? That means 27.5K person has better chance than 20K? May be I am reading too much into this.
My D got very generous 27.5K but in WL and really hoping to get in. Case is her top choice and really would have come even if there was less scholarship.
@zoemurr I can understand your S frustration as my D is in the same boat. We applied for Med program and could not apply for EA. Let us hope both of them to get off WL. Good luck.
@DSOF20192023 I’m not sure if applying early would have helped or not, but he is really upset with himself as he knew the med program was probably not going to happen. I have stayed out of his college search so far, but would like him to peruse this WL. I also am torn because I don’t want him to get his hopes up as getting in for BioMed seems very slim. He got $27k too though…