<p>Early waitlist admits may represent “substitutions”, as when the two oboe players a college admitted to fill a projected gap in the orchestra both decline, so it goes to the waitlist to find an oboe player. I have seen a couple of situations in the past where it looked like this was the major consideration, including at least one where the college had overadmitted and barely touched its waitlist.</p>
<p>Also, at this point most colleges have probably heard from enough students so that they know how their yields are running. If a college planned to use its waitlist anyway, and knows that it won’t fill up the class from the pool of students actually admitted, why not start contacting waitlisters now?</p>