Ethics of Huge Waitlists

mtmind
Fri, 13 May 2022 20:34:12 +0000

sushiritto:

Actually no, I can’t see the variation

At UM, the percentage in 2020 wasn’t too far out of line with a few other recent years. For the five most recent years, the percentages admitted off the waitlist were <1%, 13%, 2%, 7%, and 11%. That seems like quite a bit of variation to me, and in three of the years the odds of getting off the list were better than the odds of getting into some top schools.

I assume that one thing going on with these waitlists is that, like with the rest of admissions it is not as simple as ranking the students in numerical order then accepting off the top of the list until the spots are filled.

Schools are likely still concerned with creating a well-rounded class and making sure there institutional needs are met (filling majors/schools, balancing genders, meeting financial and diversity goals, etc.) and they are probably trying to stock the waitlist to cover all contingencies. Whether that means they need to be as large as they are, I’m not sure, but I’m also not sure that the schools with large lists are all playing games or acting unethically.