Wait-listed? Is Lehigh padding acceptance rates?

I find the WL curious too. I looked at our highschool Naviance charts as well as those from three other schools, and that info makes you an outlier. Given your acceptances to other schools, your essays and recs were most likely good. I’d give you a solid 90 on a 100% scale for admissions to a highly selective school which is consistent with your acceptances. It doesn’t fit with your WL at Lehigh.

I am only guessing that demonstrated interest was important and lacking. Your short answers and indicators that you had given the school serious consideration might have been lacking. It is also possible that something in your app hit the reader there the wrong way, or that person felt that you’d turn down the accept. I do not think it is systematic of Lehigh because I know too many kids accepted there this year and last, with very high stats, who are going to go Ivy or other highly selective school… Also know a few who are likely to go to Lehigh with those high stats because they’ve been turned down by their first choices. If the school were systematically protecting the yield, more of them would have been turned down.