With less than a month before school starts, some colleges and universities are reaching out to students way later than usual and offering them spots in their freshman class. Here’s why:
Really cool mention of the data shared by parents here on CC:
In mid-June, parents on College Confidential reported that their kids had received emails from Columbia University asking whether they wanted to stay on their “extended waitlist.” …
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Nice!
Is there a gift link for this article?
What do you mean? It is not gated for me.
Really? I used to subscribe to Town and Country to read these kinds of articles but don’t any more. I can’t see this article…
Oh, that is weird. I am able to see it fine. That’s why I shared it. Could it be gated in the US only?
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I get a message that it’s only available to premium members.
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I’m blocked as well.
Sorry, this article is only for premium members.
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I’ll share some of the reported facts here for those who cannot access the piece:
What Changed This Year?
The most likely explanation for the waitlist extensions this year is a fear that international students will not be able to start classes in August as a result of a pause that Secretary of State Marco Rubio placed on visa interviews earlier this year, between May 27 and June 18, during their peak season.
When I asked Moody what to expect going forward, he told me that this year’s issue with international enrollment needs to be understood as compounding, not creating, problems that have been developing for some time. Students are applying to more colleges, making it harder to predict who will enroll. Colleges are seeing more students secure a spot in a college with a deposit in the spring and then never actually enroll, a phenomenon known as melt. It’s become more common for families to make deposits at multiple colleges in the hope of securing better financial aid deals later that summer. The international visa problems have made the uncertainty and anxiety among admissions leaders worse, but they were already bad.
What Moody thinks is likely to happen over the next few years is that the “college admissions landscape is going to be better for students with higher admit rates and more merit aid, especially if they’re from full-pay families.” Outside of the Ivy League and perhaps a dozen other schools with massive endowments, colleges are going to feel great pressure to admit more students who will help them hit their bottom line. Moody worries that more colleges will lean heavily into their early decision process to admit a larger percentage of their freshman class, which “could put students in a tough spot” if they apply regular decision or if they don’t approach early decision very carefully and strategically.
The waiting lists will eventually close in the next few weeks, if only because the school year will be starting up. Don’t look forward to things getting back to normal with waitlists or anything else in admissions next year, however. As Moody told me, “There are no more normal years.”
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Thank you!
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Meaning “good” schools will be even more overwhelmingly dominated by rich kids?
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The Atlantic is the same way.
Looks like most schools have finally closed their wait lists. While I agree that it’s later than usual I don’t understand the vitriol that is being expressed by some posters on the waitlist threads.
I think the advice to students to mentally move on to the school they’ve matriculated is sound. The vast majority of wait lists decisions are historically rejections. This isn’t new for this year.
I also believe that the kids and parents who are slamming schools where they were rejected would be singing a different tune if they were accepted off the WL.
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