@Berrycupcake my D applied to Whitman last year. We were both very impressed with the campus and the students we met. The student body had been described to her as nice, smart and happy. Walla Walla is a lovely town with excellent restaurants. It is very walkable to campus.
She ended up applying ED to a different LAC. She didn’t like it better than Whitman but it’s part of a consortium which appealed to her more. But Whitman was at the top of her list had she not been accepted.
As for me, it’s my favorite of the schools we toured and part of me really hoped she would have ended up there.
Why would any school that doesn’t have an open-ended application date chose to pass on a student and then hope to take someone from their waitlist? If they wanted that applicant initially they wouldn’t have put them on the waitlist as that is the last RD round step.
@Chembiodad, this list is legit. Colleges may be fishing for kids with more money to attend than the applicant pool they have, kids with certain characteristics (gender, for example), may wish the applicants they turned down had higher stats, or they simply misjudged their yield.
Yield analysis is complicated – many colleges use software to predict it, but of course that can still be off. Especially if a college hits a bumpy patch with something that hurts its reputation during the admission decision period. But even without that, colleges misjudge. I remember a few years ago when St Mary’s College of Maryland got a new head of their admissions office who was woefully ill-informed on who their likely target audience was. That person modified their admissions outreach processes and acceptance policies, and their yield was just awful that first year. It really staggered the college (which I consider a hidden gem).
Regarding why they pass on students, it is also rough when they accept too many. In RD. A college can’t adjust housing very easily, for example. So if they expect 25% of their RD students to accept, and 30% do, now they are in the territory of forced triples and more crowded classrooms in the fall. Some colleges routinely deliberately under accept for what they think their yield will be, then fill in the class from their waitlist. But having a waitlist is no guarantee the students on the list will accept the offers or help the college financially. Hence the need sometimes to see if you can find more applicants late in the season.
Understand misjudging yield, but don’t see how you can fish for more applicants late in the season unless they are only coming off the waitlist without re-opening application deadlines. I do know that many schools are rolling forever, never close it out, but that certainly isn’t the case with UMCP.
Using UMCP as an example, at my DD’s HS, which is very highly ranked/places lots of kids in great schools (I have twin DD’s headed to Hamilton College so they do well), the acceptance rate at UMCP was 40% with an avg. 3.75 GPA and a 29 ACT - the range of kids that applied was 26-33 and there were plenty on denials around the avg. which I assume is dependent upon the college they applied to as both the business and engineering schools are very highly ranked.
@bluebayou, not surprised as only 40-50 schools are need-blind. That said, given Whitman has a $500mm endowment for 1600 students I would think they would be able to manage that message better - many schools such as Franklin and Marshall, Gettysburg, amongst many others are also need-aware, have much lower endowments and seem to be able to make that issue go away with respect to strong, highly qualified applicant interest.
Whitman is one of a few favorites of my D18 so I have dug pretty deeply into their admissions stats from the past few years. They had a rough year admissions wise with under enrollment for fall of 2015 entering class (class of 2019) which took them by surprise. Apparently they met their enrollment goals for the fall of 2016 entering class. But the fact that they are on the NACAC list for this year’s fall of 2017 makes me wonder if they are facing a similar situation to the fall of 2015’s entering class. They are likely looking for a few good fit students who are disappointed with current choices (and would be willing to go full pay?). You would think full pay status would make a difference at this point in the year. Maybe they will go deeper into their wait list in June, who knows, but it looks like they are keeping their options wide open for now.
There are students who don’t get their act together on applications for various reasons who might be floating without a school. Or those who only applied to reaches and unaffordable schools, and find themselves with no good options on the list of colleges that accepted them. Or students whose personal circumstances changed (recent change of mind on major, family situations that change the geography of where they are willing to go, etc).
No one can really see what is going on in the admissions office. So if they open up and take a few more applications in May, and pick some of those students instead of those on the waitlist, we (honestly) would never know it. Maybe they want more full pay OOS or international students (more profitable) to hit their financial targets for the year – that would be a reason to take a late applicant.
Colleges are first and foremost businesses. If they don’t at least cover their expenses, they can’t keep the doors open. They have a lot clearer picture on May 1 of the financial impact of their incoming class. People forget that colleges are businesses in the search process at their peril (some people never understand it). We usually warn people when showing them this list not to expect much in terms of FA or merit aid.
@Lindagaf - thanks for the callout. TBH, there are always a few surprises on this list (which IS a legitimate list- should be no question about that). Many posters here have already addressed the confusion about Union, and the same can also be said for one or 2 others (I forget now which and will have to peruse the list again). Poor Goucher seems to pop up on this list a lot. The biggest “surprise”, if there is one, is the greater # of open spots for freshmen. Often this list has spots for transfers only for more “familiar” schools. And also many show FA still available. Thats also a bit of a surprise. We’ll see how quickly some of these freshman spots fill.
@shortnuke When you pull up the link, it goes to University Park, not some other place. As already indicated on this thread, there are state colleges as attractive or more attractive than Penn State-UP on the list so no reason to doubt it.
we can only speculate why Whitman’s yield fell short this year. Perhaps it was an incompetent forecast? Perhaps its a regional thing? (LACs just aren’t as popular in the west, where Land Grant Unis predominate.) Perhaps this entering class was more focused on CS, engineering and business than other classes (and went elsewhere), and its one-time blip, or start of a trend? Maybe they reduced the outreach budget (aka marketing) and it came back to bite them?
btw: don’t blame the messenger: NCAC. They publish this list every year as a public service. NCAC surveys all 3,000+ colleges at the end of April to see who is full and who is still seeking students. Thus, the data source is the colleges themselves.
@doschicos I think you’re reading more into those links than there really is. From what I can tell, Penn State only has one application, and you select campus preferences in the application. I believe Pitt has the same process. I went to the web site for one of the Commonwealth campuses, followed the Apply Now link, and was directed to the general admissions page. I suspect that this may be the case for many state flagships (Arizona State, Oregon and Oregon State for example).
I agree that the Penn State listing probably is more likely to put you at a branch campus, and if you were to get into main campus you’d be in supplemental housing with 5+ roommates anyway…not ideal.
Maybe, maybe not but it can’t be determined by what is provided nor assumed it isn’t the UP campus. Penn State isn’t THAT selective after all and there are schools listed that are more selective.
My own D15’s school is on this list and always is (since I’ve been paying attention). Starting with D15’s admission year, this school is definitely trying to boost enrollment numbers that had fallen over several decades . It appears to be working because her class had the largest enrollment since the 1970s and last year’s was even bigger by a few students which makes a difference in a school with a total enrollment of 1100-1500.
This is a great thread and thanks to the op for posting this link. I wasn’t aware of this list by NACAC. This will be very helpful for those still uncertain of their fall plans.
I agree with intparent above. We can speculate regarding the reasons, but don’t lose sight that colleges are businesses first and foremost. This should not on the face of it make people question the quality of an institution that isn’t regularly on this list. Whitman is an excellent school. I am from the PNW and it is a unique student that goes to Whitman. Every student I personally know that has gone there is bright, kind, interesting, and talented. I don’t have a child at Whitman so no bias here ;0). My ds16 was impressed with Whitman after his visit there. While he applied ED elsewhere, he would have been very proud and happy to attend. Furthermore, family who hire for Amazon and in consulting in the PNW often comment that Whitman graduates stand out.
Berrycupcake if you are interested, I would suggest acting on this fairly quickly.
I have been following this list for a number of years. Frankly, I don’t think this year’s list is particularly different from the list in previous years. There are always some surprises that pop up every year. This year, Whitman and Sewanee are probably the two biggest shockers.
I think that if a school continues to show up year after year, that may indicate a larger issue. As someone already mentioned, Goucher tends to show up fairly regularly, as does New College, St. John’s College (but usually only one campus – both are on the list this year), Juniata, Hiram and others.
This is the first time I remember Beloit, Lawrence and DePauw being on the list, and only the second time I can recall Hendrix being on the list. I know that Beloit enrolled their largest first year class in history in 2015. So, it just shows you how quickly an institution (particularly small, liberal arts colleges) can go from feast to famine.