Steps to Stop Wallowing on the Wait List

Adding to all the trials of the COVID-19 experience, colleges this year are expected to offer a record number of waitlist spots to prospective applicants. While it is always difficult for colleges to accurately estimate yield (number of students who accept an offer of admission), this year yield is more unpredictable. Couple that with the large number of applicants who have not visited campuses and other COVID-related issues, and the result is expected to be long waitlists.

“Students and families need to evaluate the impact of waitlist stress on the student at this point in the process. ”

Most applicants can expect to be offered at least one waitlist opportunity. The waitlist means a student was neither rejected nor accepted, that the college liked a student well enough, but they just didn’t love the student enough to accept them initially ‒ or they are just not sure of how many spaces they will have filled. Colleges want to keep students hanging on until they find out if they’re loved back by the students they did choose to accept. It may not seem like it, but the ball is now in the student’s court.

Here are options for different waitlisted students:

Student received acceptances from other colleges they like just as much – or better.

Easy decision – the student can inform the college that waitlisted them that they’re no longer interested and have made other plans.

Student was waitlisted by their first-choice school, and they’d do anything to go there.

Easy decision –student should make a deposit at one of the colleges where they were accepted and let the dream school know that they’d LOVE to remain on the waitlist. Follow up in any way the school will allow. Some colleges permit students to submit updates, others don’t. Check the rules and follow them.

Student can’t decide.

Tough decision – the student might want to be done with the “college stuff” but still would love to attend one or more of the colleges where they were waitlisted. Student should make a deposit before May 1 at a college where they were already accepted. Remain on one or more colleges’ waitlists and see what happens.

Choosing to stay on a waitlist or not is more of a psychological decision than a statistical one. The waitlist conversion to acceptance numbers, particularly at the most selective colleges and universities, aren’t very encouraging. Last year Northwestern University accepted 2.2% of students from the waitlist, while UC Berkeley accepted 27%. Unfortunately these past numbers do not give an accurate glimpse of what this year’s waitlist statistics are likely to be.

Being accepted from a waitlist is tied entirely to the yield. As an example, if a college had a yield rate of 50 percent last year and it increased to 65 percent this year, they won’t be taking anyone off the waitlist; instead, they’ll be hunting for beds for freshmen. On the other hand, when the yield shrinks, the waitlist opens up; it’s just too variable to predict. Waitlists are not generally ranked. Colleges use them to fill needed spots in their class ‒ to make sure they have enough classics majors or journalists, as well as full-pay students.

Students and families need to evaluate the impact of waitlist stress on the student at this point in the process. Some carefree students just want to find out and approach the decision in a matter-of-fact, easy-going manner: “If I get in, great, if I don’t, that’s fine, too.”

But too many other students have already had their hearts broken once, or even twice, if they were first deferred and then waitlisted. Unfortunately, many students take college rejections and waitlists personally and beat themselves up over it, thinking they have disappointed their parents, or that the rejection defines who they are. It doesn’t. For these students, closure might be a good thing, and deciding between the colleges where they were offered a place will get them excited about the adventures that lie ahead.