So with all of these schools, they place a 1000 students on a waitlist, that they then admit 10 - 50 students from. Who gets call 1 and who is the 1000th person on that list? How is that determined? Have you noticed all the “How to get off a waitlist” advice articles and blogs there are from leading college advisors and sites? If all applicants are equal why feel the need to rectify areas of weakness in a letter? Here is an example of such advice from a popular college advice service. Not only do colleges use academic qualifications in selecting who gets called earlier, but some who are need-blind, state they are not for waitlisted students.
I reviewed the waitlist criteria for many colleges and it seems that on the one hand they state they don’t rank waitlisted students, but then almost everyone will state that they consider many factors in the selection process. Isn’t this the case with ED and RD as well? Most state that they don’t rank students but look at a myriad of factors. So although there may not be a formal ranking system for waitlisted students they are all still looking at all sorts of criteria in deciding on who gets those calls first.