<p>What factors are considered? Is the GPA recalculated after Senior year? What makes this prospective student more qualified at that admission decision then at the normal one?</p>
<p>A big factor is whether – after the accepted students reject or accept the college’s offer – there’s space remaining in the class. If there is, students are selected off the waitlist who are the strongest and/or fill holes in the class and/or seem most likely to accept a waitlist acceptance (this factor is most likely to be used by the less competitive colleges, not places like HPY, which know that students accepted off the waitlist are likely to accept their offer).</p>
<p>This year there has been a lot of WL ing. For those at my school
who did make it to top schools from the WL the degree of contact
apparently seemed to matter. i.e an intro registering interest
immediately after the 3/31 date; additional awards etc. update about
2 weeks later; a polite phone call and,having their GC convey
their interest. </p>
<p>another important factor was whether the student succumbed to senioritis.
H, P are very particualr about this and do not like to see grade dips between
mid and final term.</p>
<p>The biggest thing is whether the waitlist is real. While every school needs to have a WL and the exact number they will take from it is not known to adcoms, they can at least make a general prediction. So if the school has accepted 10-20 the last 5 years the odds of taking 500 this year are slim, to say the least.</p>
<p>This is worth knowing because some schools use the waitlist strategically; strategically for their benefit in the NEXT year’s class. Out in HS land a rejection and waitlist send 2 different messages. One is interpreted as “you weren’t good enough to get in”, the other is “we want you, we just need the space to open up”. Problem is there is no rule that says colleges must follow these 2 meanings. So some smart adcoms that want to keep the apps flooding in figured they could just send out “waitlist” letters instead of rejecting kids. The juniors who look at what’s happening to the current seniors figure they have a shot at schools that waitlist seniors like them, but will tend to avoid schools rejecting seniors like them. You end up with schools like WUSTL that have literally thousands of kids on the waitlist.</p>
<p>So the factors given earlier are important for schools that are serious about accepting kids from the waitlist, but don’t waste your time when there are thousands of other “waitlist” kids.</p>
<p>Interest and geographic/ethnic/gender quotas.</p>
<p>Post #5 seems to be right about WLs this year- ethnicity seemed like a major
factor. Sub-ethinicities (type of asian for example) seemed to be important?</p>
<p>Stanford is very good at not putting people on waitlists casually- they
reject those they do not care for. The same with H and P.</p>