Is it possible to be admitted to a reach school after having waitlists and rejections from easier to get into schools? Anyone have any insight on this? I am trying to maybe give myself a pep talk as my son has 3 reach schools left and I am afraid our application hasn’t been loved by a few schools already so don’t have great odds here.
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How does one know if a family is full pay without FAFSA? I am afraid that our zip code/region/school indicates we are more needy than we are and hope this isn’t being held against us. Only one school we have applied to used idoc.
Possible - of course?
Probably - unlikely but every year we see kids who get into - name your top school off a WL when they were rejected at schools a few rungs lower.
That said, if you have a WL - realize what it is - it’s a rejection. We did not choose your student. However, we may not be good at guessing yield so we put your kid on the WL, not as a favor to them, but an insurance policy for us. But yes, some do get off and each school is independent, so the situation you brought up can and does happen - although likely not regularly.
Hopefully you have an affordable and assured acceptance in the bag - and if you don’t, there’s still time.
Good luck.
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I do wonder if visiting would have made a difference at Kenyon (for both of my kids). I do think it would have been a great fit for S24 in particular. But we’ll never know! They did both interview (S24 online, S19 a local alumni interview).
They know you are full pay if:
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You did not apply for financial aid (whether or not you have need wouldn’t be relevant…you didn’t ask to have it considered
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You completed the required docs - whether FAFSA, FAFSA/CSS or FAFSA/CSS/IDOC - and they determined you don’t have need
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Our income and assets put the probability of need-based aid at zero. And rightfully so.
That is certainly happening to my kid this year. Waitlists at Macalester, Kenyon, and Brandeis; acceptances at Amherst, Colby, Grinnell (also waitlisted or rejected at other very selective schools and accepted at other somewhat easier admits–but so far he has not been more likely to be accepted at schools with higher acceptance rates than at schools with lower acceptance rates…at least not until you hit acceptance rates at/over around 50%)
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Possible, yes, but of course properly identified reaches are a long shot to begin with. I tend to think if you are getting mixed results from targets, that really means nothing for reaches, because that is all expected. If you applied to a lot of targets and got blanked, it could just be bad luck, but maybe there is something else going on. What else? Could be anything, so that is not super helpful. And you still may get a surprise reach admit, because really anything can happen in a committee room.
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My D23 not only visited Kenyon (from a long distance away), interviewed (in person), and did a ton of online DI but also did their 2 week on-campus Kenyon Young Writers summer program. That wasn’t enough in her case (she was a kid applying for financial aid who had significant success with need-blind reach-for-alls but wasn’t accepted to Kenyon, Skidmore, Denison, Macalester, Mt. Holyoke all of which are need-aware in admissions). She did the Denison writing summer program as well (and visited)…visit to Mt. Holyoke, too. Did interviews with all, wrote every optional essay, reached out to current students through the andmission office, and so on. I think the visit can certainly matter in some cases, but I think it is probably not significant enough to outweigh other factors/institutional priorities (yield, $$, other) most of the time.
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My daughter was wait listed at a match school but offered scholarships at reaches. We were a bit shocked by the waitlist.
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It could be that…it could be other things.
Going to a summer program is wonderful for the student for various reasons including getting to see the school.
But it’s no assurance of an admission.
And truth is, you can hypothesize why you weren’t accepted but the truth is no one has any idea.
It may be the money or it may be the student simply didn’t match what the school was looking for from an academic or other perspective.
Good luck to them.
It goes to show how independent these schools are in their decision making!!
And some schools people deem as reaches have very low yields - so they need to “entice” kids to get to campus.
One thing that has come as a shock to me in this process is the size of waitlists at these schools / kid got waitlisted at a couple of schools last week and so started looking at common data sets for waitlist data and i find it a bit reprehensible.
I ended up checking waitlist data from recents years of many of the schools he applied to this year and in many cases the number of waitlist invitations issued were equal to (and in some cases even significantly greater than) the total number of kids they admitted that year! And these are selective schools that have high yields and in end admit very few off their waitlists.
I have a theory that these colleges (acting in their own self interest as always) would prefer to show a bunch of waitlists rather than a sea of rejections on Scoir and Naviance so kids will continue to think they have more of a shot at these schools than they really do and thus keeps the application numbers up. Obviously i have no evidence of this but was racking my brain to explain this behavior (way overextending waitlist invitations) by colleges who claim in their waitlist letters that they have been thoughtful about issuing them!
These colleges wring their hands about how tough this whole process is for applicants and how they really care about them and doing the best they can by them, but this is just more evidence of how much BS this is. They can easily do a lot better…
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My hypothesis is:
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Agreeing with you - they are acting in their self interest. WL is an insurance policy for them and while some get off, for most, they are giving a false hope - like you’re so close - yet we placed double the amount of kids we admitted on it or 20-30% of all applicants. Please. But in the end, they have revenue and other targets - is this is their way of assuring these goals are hit.
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They’re likely very big because my guess/hypothesis is when they go out with offers, they likely get a very low yield. That school you loved was great - til you went and fell in love with another, found a roommate, made a friend- and now - oh, you’re back?
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Also, most WL that come through are likely full pay and if the chosen school is lower cost with merit, the Bank of Mom and Dad might have gotten comfortable with the save and tell the initial desired school, thanks …but no thanks.
People should realize a WL for what it is - a school has said no, we cannot accept you. Others don’t like to hear it - but that’s called a rejection. Doesn’t mean one is bad or unqualified. It simply means the school said no.
But we all have insurance - medical, auto, home. For a college, a WL is a misjudging of # of butts in seat insurance.
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W/L to me are just an easier way to break up.
The “its me, not you” lame break-ups of our youth. 
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My son said - i don’t need them to make me feel better - rather them just be a little more honest! 
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Yep, I agree completely with all these points and didn’t mean to suggest otherwise.
In fact, my D found the Kenyon summer program not only useful for working on her writing/meeting other writers and becoming more familiar with Gambier/campus (which for her, made it more clear it wasn’t the best fit, but for others probably moved it way up their lists) but also for demonstrating to other colleges on her application list the strength of her writing and interest in it. I was just responding to the discussion upthread about the relative importance of a campus visit at Kenyon specifically and to @kokotg wondering whether a visit might be the thing that “counts the most” at schools tracking DI. I think it certainly can’t hurt, and of course it sometimes may help, but probably many other factors (and a combination of them) are likely/frequently more significant (including, as you say, the academic/other match for the school).
To clarify what I mean, in relation to this point,
it may be that the “choice” is, at that point, between kids who in other ways fulfill the same institutional priorities and academic fit for the school…not that the visit is weighing more than academic/social/EC fit, ability to pay, etc. etc.
Thriving as a first year college student/loving the chosen school and opportunities there, thank you.
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Good news to report! There is a LOT of rum in Belize… AND she got into Lehigh and Syracuse, with leadership scholarship at ‘cuse. Yay! If you are in Belize then drinks are on me.
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My d22 was waitlisted to both Skidmore and Grinnell and accepted RD to Barnard. It does happen.
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I agree with all your points, but the amount of OVER insurance they are taking out is problematic.
We all agree this process is more taxing on applicants than it needs to be. And every waitlist invitation does take a little more time/brain space away from our seniors (even if you have advised them to treat it as a rejection and not put much weight on it) - in terms of even deciding whether to stay or not stay on waitlist, and then if an applicant decides to stay on waitlist, whether or not to send follow up emails/updates.
By way of example, here are the numbers for williams the last two years (not meaning to pick on them - others small and big are the same). They could easily halve the number of invitations and still have plenty of insurance and waste a lot less people’s time/thoughts.
Fall 2023 entering class:
Admitted: 1106
Offered waitlist: 1606
Waitlist invitation accepted: 637
Number admitted from waitlist: 3
Fall 2022 entering class:
Admitted : 1302
Offered waitlist : 2241
Wailist invitation accepted: 860
Number admitted from waitlist: 0
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