Curious as we approach M10 ‘24, My sense is that most of the schools have a sufficient experience curve so that they can predict the yield pretty well. That would explain why so few come off the W/L. Do people generally agree with that?
This is a great thread. Best advice I have seen is to take a WL as a soft rejection.
Unlike colleges, BS cannot put over-enrolled students off campus, so their solution, should they end up with more students than they expected, is to turn single rooms into doubles, perhaps convert the odd lounge into a room, etc. But as you can imagine, over-accepting is
a big problem. Most will try to get it right, but err on under-enrolling and using the WL to “right size”. And unlike colleges, many will go to their WL as soon as they sense that need, rather than waiting for A10. But most don’t use the WL extensively.
You can cross this bridge when/if you get there, but the sound advice is to 1. treat WL as a soft rejection and determine which of the schools that accepted you is the one you’d like to attend, 2. Only accept WL positions at schools you’d attend - iow, ones you prefer to the ones that accepted you.
Staying on a WL "just to see what happens " is not a good idea. Neither is evaluating your options with the hope something better will come along. As many will tell you “Love the school that loves you back.”
As usual, you are correct. As we said in basically every public announcement, it had nothing to do with the classes we admitted over the pandemic.
On October 1, MIT’s Committee on Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid (known on campus by the acronym CUAFA and made up of faculty, students, and other campus officials) convened over Zoom. On the agenda: what to do about testing in the fall of 2022. According to Chris Peterson, director of special projects in the admissions office, committee members weren’t in agreement about reinstating the tests. They knew the tests were controversial and, for a year and a half, had heard about the structural inequities they helped perpetuate. Plus, when other institutions were extending their test-optional policies or eliminating tests altogether, why, some committee members wondered, would MIT make a U-turn?
Schmill and Peterson came to that CUAFA meeting armed with data. To determine whether to keep the tests, MIT had taken a different approach from its peers: Rather than continuing to experiment on current classes, Schmill and his admissions team chose to look backward at historical data the school had been collecting on students since the early aughts. “We have 20 years of data where we fiddled with different levers over time,” Peterson told me.
no acceptances. what do y’all think the chances are for coming off of the waitlists of Exeter, Deerfield, and Lawrenceville?
IDK i would like to know as well
I’m an international student who needs FA and applied for (default) grade 11 but optional to repeat grade 10 as well. Overall my application was good and I had applied to-Exeter, suffield, choate, berkshire, the hill, Groton and Hotchkiss
I got waitlisted in Berkshire and rejected in all of the other 6. I’d love to get some tips on how to get accepted in Berkshire?
US Applicant applying for 11th. Waitlisted almost everywhere: only 1 rejection. A couple solid acceptances, but not top choices. We need financial aid, though: I feel like that’s a big part of the [soft] rejections.
I told my daughter to send an email to the admissions people thanking them, saying that she’s still interested in a spot on their waitlist, and outlining her summer plans, doing 2 things which are both great resume builders for college (and life).
Not sure there’s anything else we can do but cross our fingers.
Being able to stay on WL after 4/10 helps. With boarding schools, students do withdraw all the way until the start of fall term.
Chances for SPS Waitlist Movement?
What are the chances of getting off Hotchkiss and Choate’s waiting list for grade 10?
Same I got waitlisted for Exeter
Any insight on chances for WL move for day students needing FA?
Andover, Governor’s and Brooks.
is there any advice for getting off the WL for boarding international students??
specifically DF and Loomis
wl’ed at george, pennington, governor’s and lawrence for 11th grade needing partial fa is it joever
@treenuggets , I am heartbroken for you. So many of us here have been pulling for you. 11th grade is tough and needing FA makes it tougher still.
I hope you will reach out to George and let them know you are in WL limbo and that if accepted, you’ll say yes in a heartbeat. Who knows what the odds are, but it could happen. They would be lucky to have you.
Your grace, warmth, humor, and support of everyone shone through and gave all of us a sense of who you are, and you’re amazing.
thanks for the kind words : )
i emailed their admissions office this morning and did pretty much just that
we don’t know though if i should apply to a day school near me that i don’t really care for but will probably get into, my mom might know someone who used to work in admissions at gs so we are gonna call her and then figure it out
If you had a good connection with the theater person you spoke with, reach out to them too to see what angle they might suggest.
unfortunately she never got back to me 
but i spoke to a student there right now and he said that they just began rehearsals so they’re probably just busy although i doubt now that i’ve been waitlisted i’ll hear anything back
if she responds by some miracle i will definitely ask
one of my ao’s is still emailing me and told me she would update me periodically so i’m going to take this as a good thing (but not reading into that cuz look where that got me)
i still really wanna go to george school but they aren’t really answering my emails so idk what that means
they replied we are so back