MODERATOR NOTE: Student is a senior asking about WAITLIST chances.
I’m an Indian Male from Michigan area and wanted to know my chances of making ivy league schools such as uPenn LSM or Harvard.
Demographics
international student (indian male)
Michigan resident on visa, no greencard
Large Public School
Intended Major(s)
Bio and Finance/Bus Admin
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
Unweighted HS GPA: 3.9
Weighted HS GPA: 4.7/5.0
Class Rank: top 5% of 1700
ACT/SAT Scores: 35 ACT
Coursework
APs: AP HuG (5) AP Bio (5) AP1 (4) AP2 (5) AP Macro (5) AP Micro (5) AP Gov (5) AP Lang (5) AP Chem (5) AP Calc BC (5)
College Classes: Statistics (A)
Awards
Michigan Science Bowl (3rd at State)
FBLA State (5th in Business Plan, 4th in Intro to IT)
HOSA State (2nd in Med Term)
AP Scholar w Distinction
Extracurriculars
SSRP Research Program at Rockfeller
Remote Research about liver disease and cargo proteins
Research w local university about investing
HOSA Officer
Science Bowl
FBLA
Michigan Youth Council
Finance Internship
Volunteer at Hospital
Volunteer at Underserved communities
Essays/LORs/Other
Essays: 8/10
LORs: 9/10 from bio teacher (helped w HOSA) and econ teacher
So you’ve already taken all of these AP tests in your freshman and sophomore years? What are you taking junior and senior year? Have you taken any foreign language?
I’m also confused about your residency. Are you from Michigan or an international applicant?
I’m a senior, just wanted to know about my chances of making it out of the waitlist. I’m from Michigan but i don’t have a greencard and still on visa so still considered as an international student.
So you’ve been waitlisted at all of these schools and want to know your chances of getting off the waitlists? Your original post was misleading and I thought you were a HS junior applying in the fall.
I’m assuming you have schools to which you’ve been accepted, correct? It’s best for you to start to plan a future at one of those schools. Waitlist movement at elite schools is usually very small and often comes after the May 1 commitment dates. Some waitlists go in to June or later. Good luck to you wherever you end up!
Wait Lists are rejections - that’s the reality. The schools didn’t accept you.
However, they are using you as an insurance policy, in case they don’t have as many enroll as they expect. You’re a quality student and they realize this - so they put you out there - but this is for them, not you. So they’ve said no to you but…we could change our minds if needed.
So to answer your question, there’s no way to know the likelihood of getting off but it’s likely not good - and you should not think about it. You should be focusing on where you are committing to.
If a WL comes through, you can address it then. But if it comes through, it’s more about who didn’t attend that they thought would (in aggregate #s) vs. anything about you (until they start choosing who to pull if they have a spot).
Obviously you’re a strong student - but please focus on who accepted you vs. these schools. Emotionally, you’ll feel much better and the strong odds are you’re going to one of those accepting schools.
And one more thing…where would you think you would apply to medical school? Medical schools here accept a VERY small number of international students and most are from Canada. And for both business and medicine…what was your plan for after graduation?
You’re a very, very strong applicants, and surely would have been accepted, had you had a green card or US citizenship.
Your chances of getting in off the wait lists are virtually nil. Wait lists have gone from being a true wait list, with a chance of being accepted, to serving as a soft rejection, to not alienate the related donors, who can at least be consoled that their child/grandchild met the criteria for being admitted, but there were just SO many applicants.
You’ve got to make other options. For med school, can you go in India? Your chances of winding up as an MD in the US are better if you can go to a 6 yr program in India, and then apply for a medical residency here.
Waitlist chances are usually impossible to determine because they typically depend on individual decisions that are impossible to predict.
Like, the chain has to start with too many admits not enrolling such that the college has to go to the waitlist to fill out their target class size. How many slots that will create is highly variable, and sometimes it is none at all (in which case the college might be overenrolled, which happens sometimes).
Then the question is WHO didn’t enroll? Most colleges reserve the right to pick anyone they want off the waitlist, so they can meet various goals for their enrolled class. One of those goals can be budgetary, and in fact there is a so-far-successful lawsuit alleging a lot of supposedly need blind colleges actually were need aware when it came to their waitlist decisions. But they could also be looking for certain academic interests, certain activity interests, various demographics (to the extent allowed by law), and so on.
OK, so not only do you need too many admits to turn down the college’s offer, you need them to be the right sorts of admits such that offering you in particular a spot, as opposed to someone else on the waitlist who is different from you, would help that college hit its targets for the class.
Which might happen. But probably will not. But it might. But there is no real way to put a number on that probability, otherwise than to note usually for the types of colleges you are looking at, it doesn’t happen for many.