I have a bone to pick with W & L. They gave D26 a WL–which is fine. But then her W & L AO emailed D26 and asked her what her favorite 5 movies were (D26 started a film club at her high school).
D26 responded with a significant write up and never heard from the AO again. She sat on pins and needles for a month wondering if she would clear the WL.
The W & L AO was young and newer to her role. She should not have given D26 false hope like that.
Or maybe she didn’t like D26’s film choices! 
Interestingly there is talk that some schools are using the waitlist for yield management but in a different way - that those who have over-enrolled in recent years (leading to housing issues etc) have put more people on the waitlist this year and only start taking off once it is clear there is capacity for them. So not trying to manipulate yield numbers, just trying to optimize the size of the freshman class.
A typical timeframe for accepting a waitlist offer is 24-72 hours. There’s just not enough time for them to wait longer than that if they have to move on to the next candidates. I’m guessing if your D has said yes on the phone call, she would have received an offer of admission.
It should be if the school is reporting numbers like they are supposed to in IPEDs and on the CDS. Students admitted off the waitlist should be in the applied/admitted/enrolled numbers (if they enroll) in Section C1 of the CDS. These students would also be in the waitlist numbers (offered a waitlist place/accepted a waitlist spot/admitted off the waitlist, section C2)
Because the process is sadly not student centered.
Yes, there is that transparency.
I suspect many of these schools think it’d be a bit off brand to explain how they use outside consulting firms to optimize revenue and yield, and to what extent those consultants and their algorithms help shape the incoming class.
Disturbing to read any implication that need-blind schools are favoring students who can pay.
I have a family member who was on the lower end of getting into Richmond. Legacy, deferred, but was contacted confirming no FA was needed (definitely not) and she was admitted.
Why did she make this choice?
Thanks for sharing your experience.
She only submitted her test scores when she was at or above the 50th percentile mark at the school. Many people say that you should submit with test scores at or above the 25th percentile mark. For our particular situation, we disagree.
Even then, for schools that would offer merit and included merit in their NPC calculator, we would run NPC calculations to see what our merit award might be if D26 was test optional versus if D26 submitted her scores.
Interestingly, D26 often was shown a higher merit award if she applied test optional than if she submitted her score. So we left it out in those cases.
Did you infer this as the midpoint of the 25-75 range?
That is interesting. Was this correlated to where she was in the lower half of scores?
Pretty sure many of them know how various factors other than the actual financial aid application (if any) correlate to financial aid need, so they can hit the target financial aid budget for the entire class, with individual misses largely canceling each other out. Obvious factors of this type include legacy (less need) and first generation (more need), but almost all other factors can correlate to financial aid need (e.g. weighting of HS grades versus SAT/ACT scores, what types of extracurriculars are given more weight, etc.).
IIRC, we pulled this from the CDS. They had a 50th percentile ACT scores.
I forget the exact correlations. I just remember being surprised that D26 could have a 50th percentile or above test score and then get LESS merit money than if she were test optional.
I would invite people to try this and see. I think it might have been Furman where this happened. Maybe Rhodes too. I forget.
I am not saying that this effect was widespread. I think I discovered it by accident. I once failed to put in her ACT score (and got the test optional merit award) and then I went back and put in her score which was at the school’s 50th percentile score and the merit amount was LOWER.
But repeating this with other schools……this effect popped up from time to time.
That is indeed interesting. In my circles, the conventional wisdom is that to be competitive for merit (or at least much merit), you usually need tests in their top 25th, if not higher. It sounds like what you found was at least not inconsistent with that notion.
That’s interesting, definitely worth checking. The only school that C26 applied to that was transparent about merit, ASU, their SAT score added something like $3500-4000 a year (I forget the exact number now). (Their SAT score was also probably entirely responsible for the other merit awards they were offered, because overall gpa was not great, but at none of the others could we see for sure. For context, SAT was above 75th percentile at all schools but one, where it was exactly at 75th.)
I lean towards thinking this is a symptom of an inaccurate NPC. Did actual financial aid results in these cases match the NPC(s)?
Thank you! This has been a helpful read, as I have a D29, who is eyeing LAC for premed route. We are suburban SoCal…how do you anticipate the transition to east coast life? I ask, because we had some recent family friends that ended up transferring to west coast larger schools, because they couldn’t quite fit into the east coast “judged by your prep school” culture (two of those schools were on your long list 
) But the cutthroat UC science life is not appealing either.
Interesting. For further clarity, what were the “very good” test scores? It helps people get a proper picture of the takeaways from your daughter’s experience. Thanks.
Yeah, thanks for the heads-up! I would be surprised and confused by this, too! my 27 is applying to more selective schools than 25 (and am predicting more yield management honestly with them…), so am wondering if this will come up for us this year.
Can I interest your daughter in some Midwest LACs? Midwest Nice is a real thing in my view, and there are some great LACs in terms of academics, campuses, settings (including some in or near diverse, globally-connected major cities), special programs, and so on. AND some of those will even offer merit to highly-qualified admits.
If the initial reaction to this idea is not the most positive, you can try a visit just to see what that can look like. There are concentrations of LACs in certain places, like for example a visit to Minneapolis/St Paul can let you check out a bunch. If that doesn’t generate any interest, well, it was a fun place to visit. If it does seem promising, you can then expand out to other areas as well.