This is from GA Tech’s admission staff. A waitlist offer is not a rejection/denial. It means there might (and might not) be a spot after acceptances are processed. Many factors go into whether any offers of admission are made from the WL, but it’s not a flat out denial.
This is a great article and a wonderful closing message to not attach self worth to admissions decisions.
The only thing I would add is that the Common Data Set can provide some insight to historical WL trends/numbers. Some schools are notorious for WL thousands and almost never going to the WL, and others actively go to the WL every year. It’s section C2 of the CDS.
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I agree, this struck me as containing a high density of very useful, clearly-explained, authoritative advice, with a humane message at the end.
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Students offered a spot on the waitlist are competitive applicants that a college cannot admit now.
For many colleges I think this is a bit disingenuous. In fact the blog post itself explains the issue, going on to say
I want you to hear this: incredible students receive decisions of defer, admit, waitlist, and deny.
If they are “incredible students” and were denied then they were also “competitive applicants”, no? Students want to think of the WL as practically an admission, there just isn’t a space for them yet. And perhaps once that’s what a WL signaled.
These days some colleges are notorious for putting far more students on the “waitlist” than they actually admit. I think they do this knowing that waitlist stories circulate in HS in the spring but once the next class becomes seniors few are aware of who actually got off the WL. In effect every kid they “waitlist” becomes a brand ambassador for the college, their story encouraging juniors to apply and take their shot. Which colleges love, more applicants means lower yield and higher perceived value.
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Another reason is that yield tends to be relatively low for waitlisted students. Even for schools with decent overall yields.
And for colleges that admit by major/school/program, it can be difficult to model yield at that level. So they need to make sure they’ve waitlisted chemistry majors, majors for the engineering school, etc etc etc.
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Yes, it seems natural to me if you don’t know who is actually going to take your initial offers, and there is some uncertainty about who will actually take an offer off the waitlist, you are likely going to end up wanting to start off the waitlist process with some significant multiple of your actual intended waitlist enrollees.
On the one hand, I agree this means you need to realize there may actually be no slots at all for your type of applicant, it all depends on who takes the initial offers. if too many people too similar to you take those initial offers, that is likely that.
But I don’t think this means you are not in some sense competitive at the time you are offered a waitlist spot. Indeed, the actual problem is you AND other people are ALL competitive, and sometimes it is other people who end up taking all the available offers. But they don’t know that is going to happen until it actually happens.
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Some of this is regional, based on what I have observed.
In my area (urban, Northeast) most kids view a waitlist as a no and then they move on. There isn’t the obsessive analysis that some of y’all engage in evaluating yield, timing, overall admit rates, etc. They took their shot- they got waitlisted- they accept one of the other fine offers of admission they’ve gotten and end of story.
And to be honest- I think this tracks nicely with reality. I can think of less than a handful of kids over the last decade that I know who ended up at a college that initially waitlisted them. Maybe 3? The guidance counselors in the area are pretty realistic and I’ve never heard of one encouraging a kid in the belief that a waitlist is going to turn into an acceptance. Whether a college has a huge waitlist or a small one- the kid hasn’t been accepted, and by April it’s time to fall in love with the one that loves you back.
I read these detailed analyses and posts on CC with fascination. Kids wanting to know whether winning the mayor’s award for citizenship is going to move the needle. Parent wanting to know if Duke is “signaling” something special by a “personalized” invitation to their kid to “please let us know if you wish to stay on the waitlist”. Everyone worrying that the final final GPA will be a 3.9578 and not a 4.0 and will that torpedo their chance to benefit from “summer melt” once senior grades and transcripts are sent.
I feel for everyone who is feeling stung by the process but for the kids out there- trust me- this will not be the biggest disappointment of your life. Accept one of your offers and move on.
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As momofboiler1 noted, I think the CDS can provide some useful insight on what waitlisting means for a specific college.
Like I just looked it up, and in their 2025-26 CDS, Princeton reported 36 waitlist admits out of 1086 accepting a place. That obviously supports a case for basically forgetting about Princeton at that point.
Stony Brook, however, admitted 3462/5191! I wouldn’t try to read tea leaves, in most cases there will be nothing you can do to move the needle, and you obviously need to make sure that you enroll somewhere else . . . but that’s a real possibility!
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To be fair, 36/1086 is 3.3%, so it’s not that far off their regular admission rate! I think it supports forgetting about Princeton even in RD! 
I will say that in my urban, northeast part of the woods that it’s a mixed bag, and I can’t make a generalization on whether kids think that waitlists are a big deal or not. Some care because they’re somewhat dissatisfied with the school they ended up with (bad list building, but it happens). Others are happy to ignore and choose their school early even before they get all their decisions in.
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Aah, the perils of the unhooked applicant trying their hand at a single digit school….
IMO most students are pretty realistic that a WL has likely a low probablility of changing and they enroll at another school. But that said, in fairness, look at the thread from this past year re: schools going to their WLs. 2025 Waitlists - expect movement (read why) and list them here
There is always the summer melt too, when more WL activity occurs. And the list from the above link is not comprehensive nor does it reflect some additional schools that went to their WL later (while not posted here, it doesn’t mean there was no additional WL activity). Most students I knew who accepted a WL position were prepared to withdraw their acceptance at their selected/enrolled school if the more highly desired acceptance came through from the WL and was affordable, even up to a few weeks before school started. In some (probably not many) cases, at some private colleges, a call from the HS counselor to admissions advising them that a particular WL student would accept, even if full pay, would tip the scales to an admission.
As others have said, one should look at past WL patterns when schools make it available. Sometimes schools don’t go to their WLs, at other times they may have gone deep into their WLs. Its likely that data analytics now are more finely tuned to help schools better gauge admission/acceptance patterns, but stuff happens (like this year’s massive layoffs and concerns about visas) that cause many accepts students to decline acceptances.
It has been a few years since we heard of schools overenrolling (think Michigan in past years, and schools having to triple up double dorm rooms and/or house some in hotels initially, as has happened in the past)
But a low probability is not NO probablility, and telling WL students that a WL is a rejection is disengenuous and IMO, can be unkind and hurtful to students. Agree with what others have said above re: the GA Tech article’s reiteration about each student’s worth, value, and to be sensitive to their feelings and emotional well being.
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Interesting table from the San Francisco Chronicle on a waitlist movement at the UC schools in 2024–25:
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That’s really interesting, and obviously that is a pretty big difference in admitted/opt-in ratios between different UCs. I also wonder how much each individual UC might vary year to year.
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Interesting that Irvine doesn’t seem to be on that list? Does the article mention why?
Never mind, I just saw the footnote 
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A bit surprising that UCLA was sooo different than Cal.
This is very true.
I think that a student who is waitlisted needs to focus on other opportunities. However, I have seem students accepted off of a waitlist.
I still for example remember many years ago an acquaintance being very excited about getting accepted into McGill in either May or maybe even June. They had already put down a small deposit at a different university. They just lost their small deposit and went to McGill.
I know that this is primarily about undergraduate admissions. However, I have seen students get accepted off a waitlist to a very good graduate (doctoral level) program. One issue here is that I do not think that doctoral programs overbook, so admissions off of a waitlist might be a bit more likely.
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Unkind and hurtful- possibly.
But college admissions is often the first time that the kids used to “participation trophies” have to come to terms with not always getting what you think you deserve. And IMHO it’s better to learn that when you’re 17 than when you’re 35.
There are a LOT of entitled people in the world. I’ve dealt with employees who can’t understand why a colleague was promoted and they were not. Legitimate question. And I try to be transparent. But some people can’t or won’t let it go and it poisons their attitude and the environment. And the typical “you will definitely be under consideration for the next cycle if your performance stays at a high level” is honestly just a platitude if the person can’t get past their very natural but also very common disappointment. Someone else got what they think they deserve. It stings- but most healthy adults get past it. And the ones who can’t grind away. It comes up in every conversation– a legitimate “did you finish that spreadsheet yet?” gets the answer “go ask the golden boy who seems to do everything right these days”.
I think the disappointment of a waitlist is a good thing to experience as a teenager (of course as long as the kid’s list was developed appropriately and that there are solid choices to be made).
Certainly no one likes disappointment, but it is a part of life. And the advice to students accepting spots on any WL, as @DadTwoGirls said, to focus on other opportunities, is wise, and what students would (IMO) and should do. But there is no harm in staying on a WL, especially if it’s a school the student would go to even if accepted at the last minute. Most students who stay on the list move on, and in fact most of those I know who were ultimately offered an admission from a WL had already financially and psychologically committed elsewhere. But like @DadTwoGirls, I have known students to accept a late admission off a WL.
The numbers in the SF Chronicle above showed that 82% of students who accepted a spot on the UCSB WL were admitted. That’s HUGE. This past year it was 53% per their CDS:
25713 offered WL spot
18022 accepted WL spot
9603 admitted off WL
Their initial admission rate was around 38% this past year, so chances of admission off the WL was higher than the initial admissions rate.
Certainly WL movement varies from school to school and year to year, and any student placed on a WL should hedge their bets and accept a choice from admission offers they receive while taking a WL spot if they so choose (no harm, no foul).
Bottom line, and perhaps its semantics, but an important distinction to the minds and emotions of young adults - a WL is NOT a denial or rejection. IMO that terminology is incorrect. It’s a “we think your stats are good enough for an admission, but we have offered others with similar (or better) stats, or who we deem a better fit for our incoming class, spots first. If spots open up after acceptances are made, we may offer you a spot.” A student can choose to hold on, but not necessarily hold out hope. JMO.
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I agree with this. I like the attitude that I saw with a friend’s student last year that basically said, “I didn’t get denied!” They were happy to not get a no. And then they themselves said no thanks to that waitlist spot and went happily to school they were accepted to in regular decision. Power move!
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Anecdote: last year I was closely following the WL discussion, as my kid was on five waitlists. Came off two. He was so psychologically committed to his May 1 school, had a dorm assignment etc., that, in mid June, it was a fair bit of mental work to change perspective.
Before that acceptance, I suggested “leaving the door open” to the possibility of WL admission, that sometimes we need to be ready to turn on a dime to take advantage of opportunities in life. I was trying to prepare him; I just had a feeling I guess.
That was apparently a difficult thing to do in practice for a 17 year old. His analysis ignored the prestige differential but was otherwise very deliberate. There was uncertainty, fear of the unknown. I had to hold my tongue more than a little to let him make his own decision while at the same time offering the guidance he was sort of begging for, walking that parental tightrope. He was really stressed. I tried to impress upon him that this was part of the adventure of life. He did make the switch and is 1000% happy with the decision.
For parents who have not yet been down the road of WL admissions, I would note that the timeframe to decide to enroll off a waitlist may be very short, in some cases, 24 hours, though may also happen in stages of a sort, e.g. tell us you are going to enroll vs actually making the deposit.
A special mom memory: kid running down the stairs after having received a message that the AO wanted to have a phone call. In a split second, I knew that everything had changed, before I knew which school, before he even spoke.
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