Ethics of Huge Waitlists

AnonDad2026
Fri, 13 May 2022 23:37:32 +0000

momofboiler1:

That said, all the information about size and #s that are offered admission is available on the common data set. IMO, every student should do a deep dive of the CDS for every school on their list.

Not entirely true - some schools post all of that data, some schools post some of that data and some schools post none of that data. Also, some schools have only posted data through 2020-21, and some have posted through 2021-22. I don’t know that pre 2020-21 data is going to be meaningful anymore and 2020-21 data is definitely not meaningful. Realistically though, the only data that is meaningful is the current year’s data, especially given this year, last year and the year before. So, I think it would be very nice and easy for schools to tell applicants for example - we accepted 1532 applicants, we waitlisted 2047 applicants, we rejected 53,785 applicants. Yale puts that info right on the portal in a link below your acceptance or rejection. It would be even nicer if after the deadline to accept the spot on the waitlist they updated it to say 879 accepted a spot on the waitlist. (these are made up numbers by the way, and do no represent any school). Given this information (transparency), applicants would know what they were really up against and would focus more on the school they committed too and less on the school that they have a miniscule chance with. But like i said many posts earlier, I don’t think it is unethical, I just think people would like a better picture, for a fuller understanding of the situation.