Wait listed at 7 schools... unusual?

mikemac
Tue, 01 Apr 2014 19:26:35 +0000

Does it seem at all weird or unusual to be wait listed at this many schools? Statistically, the chance of this happening is probably very small.

Because “waitlist” does not mean you are close to being admitted, which sounds like your interpretation. Maybe once upon a time it met you were just about in, now it usually means something quite different.

How waitlists “work” is one of the shameful sides of college admissions, IMHO. There is no rule that requires putting only enough kids on the waitlist to provide a reasonable buffer for a shortcoming in enrollment. So some smart college adcoms realized they could have it both ways. They could use the waitlist to have a stock of kids to cover any shortfalls. And they could use the waitlist to pass out “acceptances” that didn’t require actually enrolling the kid!! Parents and other kids would treat these phantom acceptances like real ones in signalling desirability.

Exhibit A should be Duke, a school striving to better its reputation. Duke waitlisted 3,382 students in 2011, a number that is about twice the size of the number of places they have for frosh. In other words to empty the waitlist every single person accepted would have to decline, and so would the entire set accepted from the waitlist to replace them. Of course Duke has no illusions this will happen; in 2010 they took a grand total of 60.

It was, however, a good move on Duke’s part to have 3,382 kids out there spreading the word at their HS that they are waitlisted at Duke. If 2 or 3 kids at each HS say to themselves “Sally got waitlisted and my stats are similar, maybe even a bit better; I think I can get in!” then Duke gets a bump in the number of students that applied, making it even more selective and boosting its desirability.

Accept the spots if you want, but I wouldn’t get my hopes too high if I were you. Unfortunately, but that’s how the game is played these days.