Waitlist Mythical Legend?

soozievt
Fri, 18 Nov 2005 20:06:39 +0000

Being deferred is better than being rejected but is NOT the same as a waitlist. When a student is deferred, the acceptance decision is not yet made. This happens in Early Decision and Early Action schools where they wait until they see ALL of the applicants in RD before rendering an admissions decision on those on the deferred pile. It also can happen at rolling admissions BFA programs where they don’t want to fill the class until all the auditions are done. They hold onto some kids under consideration and then decision are made and a class is chosen at the end of the admissions season (often in spring…by April 1). A deferral can turn into an acceptance or a rejection.

A waitlist is a kind of an admissions twilight zone reserved for applicants who are neither accepted or rejected (unlike deferrals that turn into acceptances or rejections by the final decision date, April 1). Applicants are assigned to the waitlst when final acceptance and rejection letters go out (around April 1 at most colleges). A college reserves a waitist in case those students who are accepted do not fill all the slots in their class, even if they accepted more than they will yield. If the adcoms either misjudged the yield and it was low and they were able to go to the waitlist, or in the case of a small program like CMU, Otterbein, or UMich, where many accept the offer and there are not a lot of slots and so they do not want to accept too many over the number of slots available, then they too will go to those on a waitlist. As theatermom indicated, if you are on the waitlist, they would accept you if there was room. A deferral is more that you are still under consideration and made a “cut” of sorts rather than being rejected earlier on in the season. But it does not mean you would be accepted.

Susan

PS…Mary Anna, I would not see a deferral as a “probable admit” anywhere. Rather it is an indication that you are still in the running and a decision on you has not yet been made. I’ve had kids deferred who did not get admitted and this is typical. Some get admitted but I would not call it probable.