Objective or subjective admissions

frazzled2thecore
Wed, 28 Mar 2012 09:34:09 +0000

It is when schools such as Tufts and WUSTL, with acceptance rates higher than “upper Ivies”, are accused of waitlisting or turning down students they believe will have “better” options (that is, those whose applications they believe will be attractive to schools higher in the rankings), so that their yield remains high, while accepting students with “lesser” qualifications who they guess will have fewer choices come May 1. Visit the Tufts and WUSTL boards and you will get an idea of what this means and how many students who are not given the green light interpret their waitlist statuses.

Many of these are schools that used to be much less selective than is now the case, and that do not require much in the way of supplementation to the Common App. Our public high school’s Naviance does not indicate that this is happening. In fact, what we have seen is that when schools such as these wish to woo students away from alternatives that are higher in the rankings, they often go to great lengths to sweeten the offer with improved FA, admission to special programs, and reminders that they might prove an exceptionally good fit.