<p>Hi, I’m a new member to CC. I was waitlisted by Stanford yesterday, which was a better result than I expected, but I now face a conundrum. </p>
<p>I was planning to visit one of the four schools to which I was hoping to be accepted on the east or west coast over my spring break next week, but I was rejected from MIT and Princeton, and waitlisted at Caltech as well. Hooray for being a white male from Midwest Suburbia! XP (Yes, I’m bitter about it; I’m currently using the affirmative action topic for a paper in my English class. At least that gives me a way to vent my frustration.)</p>
<p>Anyway, Stanford was my first choice, but now I don’t know if I should visit campus for a tour, etc, or not. Do you think there’s any possibility that a campus visit would boost my chances for admittance from the waitlist? I’d like to go just to see the campus, which is apparently mind-blowing, but I’m not sure if I want to see the quality of the school only to be rejected and be painfully aware of what I’m missing. What do you suggest I do?</p>
<p>On the bright side, I at least have Northwestern and WashU as options, so whatever happens I’ll have somewhere to go! Thanks for your help.</p>
<ol>
<li>no. if you are eventually admitted from the waitlist, you should visit then. </li>
<li>stop being bitter. you won’t get people’s pity.</li>
</ol>
<p>I bet you didn’t get rejected because you are white. I bet you got rejected because they receive over 30,000 applications. 90% of people who applied are rejected.</p>
<p>Princeton actually did a study (an individual professor) a few years ago regarding applications:</p>
<p>With the same exact stats,
a black person is 10 times more likely to be admitted than an Asian
a hispanish person 6 times
a white person 3 times</p>
<p>You can probably calculate yourself in there.</p>
<p>I haven’t been able to locate the actual “study”…</p>
<p>From what I can see from, admittedly a brief internet search, Princeton doesn’t even report how many black applicants they get. Only how many enrolled. Their enrollment rate of blacks is less than 10% and hasn’t really gone above that since they started accepting blacks in the 60s. I’m not clear why there continues to be a perception that their acceptance rates outpace other races. It’s less than 10% of enrollment.</p>
<p>Your chances of getting off the waitlist, no matter how wonderful you are, are pretty slim since there are over a thousand people on it. And, since you think your wait list result was better than you expected, you are probably near the bottom of that list. I wouldn’t spend the money to visit just yet. Besides, if you get off the list, there’s no doubt in my mind that Stanford is better than your other choices, so saying “yes” could be a no-brainer anyway.</p>