While April 1st has come and gone and the majority of high school seniors know where they will attend college next year, some students are still in a holding pattern. They are stuck in the purgatory of college admissions. They are on the dreaded Wait List.
Reality is that there is no way to predict if you will be taken off the wait list of a college. You can look at the numbers from last year and gauge your chances. But only the college knows if they will need wait listed students to fill spots in their class.
Even if the odds are against you, you should not sit around and not do anything about it. But first, let’s look at how colleges use the Wait List. As with so much with college admissions, the existence of the Wait List has very little to do with you as an applicant and everything to do with the self-interest of educational institutions. And what do colleges care about most? Money and rankings.
What is the Wait List in college admissions?
Conceptually, applicants who end up on the Wait List are the back-up team in the event that someone accepted doesn’t take a space. You will get off the Wait List if someone else decides not to attend. At least that is what colleges you want you to think. But the Wait List is really a way for colleges to manipulate certain data and look after their bottom lines.
It’s all about the money
Let’s take the bottom line first. Admitted applicants represent dollar signs. Each matriculating student comes with money. Some come with a lot: the students who will pay the full cost of attendance. Some will come with very little: the students who need significant financial aid and scholarships to attend.
The college has a budget to make, and it’s not always clear on the day the admissions offices sends out those acceptances what the resulting income will be. Will all those rich kids decide to go somewhere else, leaving a major hole in our budget? Will all the Pell Grant students decide to attend, creating another hole in our budget?
Accepted students have until May 1st to make their decision about which college to attend. At that point, colleges will tally up the anticipated revenue from the particular students who will matriculate. And they will look at the bottom line. Is the budget in balance? Can we afford to take a few more Pell Grant students to provide them a fantastic educational opportunity? Or are we in the hole, meaning that we have to find a few more of those “full pay” students to make up the budgetary shortfall?
A college will therefore pull from the Wait List those students who will help ensure that the college can make the revenue targets for the year. After all, colleges are expensive. There are all those tenured faculty to pay, health benefits to provide, and buildings to heat (not to mention the landscaping that needs tending and the fitness center that needs new elliptical machines).
It’s all about the rankings
The budgetary issues are relatively easy to understand. The rankings issues are more nuanced. Let’s dive in, anyway.
Colleges and universities have to report out admissions statistics to the government, to the public, and (especially) to US News & World Report. Two admissions statistics are super important. First is the admissions rate. The public presumes that the lower the admissions rate, the better the college. Never mind whether that perception has any basis in reality: the presumption is used in the rankings. Low admit rates mean higher rankings.
The other crucial statistic is the yield rate: the proportion of students offered admission who actually enroll. The perception is that the higher the yield rate the better–the more desirable the college is. Again, nevermind whether this statistic is an accurate perception of reality. US News doesn’t care about realities, it cares about selling subscriptions to the rankings rags. And colleges care about whatever US News cares about. Why? Because the rankings drive higher numbers of applications which drives more money into the college coffers (See the section above: “it’s all about the money”).
What does the Wait List have to do with rankings?
I spoke with a college data expert today who called the Wait List “Early Decision 3.” Like Early Decision, the Wait List is a way for colleges to protect their yield rate. So let’s take a quick digression to understand how early decision determines the yield rate.
Early Decision and the Yield Rate
Because an early decision application carries with it a promise to attend, the yield rate is effectively 100%. That’s as high as it goes. So more and more college are accepting more and more students in the early decisions, both round 1 and round 2.
To give you an idea of how this works, Emory has been able to raise its yield rate quite a bit over the past few yeaers. How did they do it? In 2022-23, Emory accepted 66% of the incoming class in the early decision rounds. If you accept a high percentage of the incoming class at a yield rate of 100%, then you can admit a smaller portion of your class at a lower yield rate and still come out smelling like a rose at US News. Miracles can happen…if you know how to play the game.
The Wait List and the Yield Rate
The Wait List also gives colleges an opportunity to manipulate both the admissions rate and the yield rate. How does this work?
As mentioned, you get off the wait list if you can help a college meet its goals, whatever those happen to be. In this account, you get off the wait list if you can help move the college up in the rankings.
So let’s just assume the college chooses you to get off the Wait List. You will NOT get anything in writing. Instead, you’ll get a call from admissions: “hello, Mark, I’m happy to let you know that we can offer you a position off the Wait List, and you have 24 hours in which to give me a response.”
If you accept the offer, great. If not, the admissions officer will call the next name on his list. But notice that nothing is in writing. Admissions officers do this so that they do not have to report any official statistics to the government or to US News. Your acceptance off the Wait List is also blissfully unrecorded in the college’s admissions statistics.
As a result, the college protects its admissions rate–which is held artificially low by accepting lots of kids in the early decision rounds AND off the Wait List. Moreover, the college protects its yield rate, making it artificially high–by taking lots of kids early decision and accepting an increasing percentage of students off the Wait List.
In the 2022 admissions cycle at Emory, the percentage of students offered admission from the Wait List was 8 percent. As a result, effectively 74% of the student body was accepted from Early Decision 1, Early Decision 2, and “Early Decision 3” (a.k.a. the Wait List). Only 26% of applicants were admitted in the “regular” admission round. The acceptance rate in the Early Decision rounds was 26%. The overall acceptance rate was 11%–down from 19% just two years ago. And those students admitted off the Wait List? They aren’t even counted in the acceptance statistics. (How do they do this? By using the phone rather than any traceable emails or documentation…see above).
And yet, 33,197 students applied to Emory in 2022, and the vast majority were rejected. The result? Exactly what the university hoped: a further reduction in the admissions rate, a rise in the yield rate, and a increase in the percentage of students who pay full price. Interestingly, however, Emory’s US News ranking fell from 2018 to 2023 by a few places.
Nevertheless, Emory wins the game. Tens of thousands of unsuspecting applicants lose.
[If you’re interested in the source of all this data, check out Moore College Data.]
Why this lengthy explanation of the Wait List?
Because you need to know how to interpret your chances of getting in off the Wait List. If you love this particular college more than anything, and you’ve been relegated to the Wait List, you need to understand–painful though it may be–that this purgatory you’re experiencing is not about you. It has nothing to do with the merits of you as an applicant. It has nothing to do whether you have the qualifications to attend this particular school.
Rather, it has everything to do with the narrow self-interest of an institution that sees you mostly as a dollar sign and a data point. I know it’s easy for me to say. It’s almost impossible for anyone NOT to take this process personally: you are putting yourself on the line and asking to be judged as “worthy” or “unworthy” of admission to a particular institution.
But in many ways, this process is entirely impersonal and you and your accomplishments matter less to the institution than their own narrow self interests. It bites. But that’s the way it is.
So what do you do if you are on the Wait List?
You have a couple of choices if you find yourself on the Wait List.
Move on
Some colleges put thousands of applicants on the Wait List. Statistically, your chances are pretty low of receiving one of those phone calls from admissions. Of course, if your family can pay full price for tuition, your chances are perhaps a little bit better. Emotionally, you can do yourself a favor and move on. Look at the colleges that did admit you. You applied to those places, and you liked many things about them–enough to spend all that time completing the darned application.
As the song goes, “love the one you’re with“. With time, you’ll forget the sting of the Wait List. Tell the college that put you on the Wait List to take a flying leap and open yourself up to new love.
Accept a place on the Wait List
If you remain interested in the college that has put you in purgatory, then you should do what you can to try to get off the Wait List. When you receive this offer of purgatory, you are given explicit instructions as to what to do. Often all you need to do is check a box on a form that is sent to you through the admissions portal from the office of admission.
Even if you decide to do this, try to keep your emotions on an even keel. The statistics are still against you. However, by placing yourself on the list, your chances or greater than zero that you’ll get in off the Wait List.
And if by some miracle you do get that phone call, rejoice. You have a new choice: your “new love” or your “old flame.” You can’t really lose in that situation.
In general, most colleges will clear their Wait List by early June, although some colleges have been known to make a call to a student as late as August. But if you haven’t heard anything by the Fourth of July, read the silence and move on (see above).
How can you increase your chances of being taken off the Wait List?
There are a few things you can do to increase your chances, at least a smidge. If you agree to stay on the Wait List, then there is no reason not do do them. So here’s your plan:
Continue to show interest
Some colleges do not rank students on the Wait List by the applicants’ desirability or any other objective factor that we mere mortals outside the admissions office can see. Some colleges do, however, rank their wait list based on the review of your application. Your overall admission score can include your testing and your grades and the students with the highest scores will be taken off the wait list first. The major you wish to pursue could be a factor. Geography or where you live could be a factor. And, as we have mentioned, your ability to pay could very likely be a factor.
Your demonstrated interest in the college could also be a strong factor. All colleges are very conscious of their yield, so they want to admit students off their wait list that they think are going to enroll. So it is essential that you continue to show interest in the college you are waiting to hear from. After all, does that admissions officer making all those phone calls want to waste time calling a student who is unlikely to say “yes” to the offer to get in off the Wait List?
If you have not done so already, send an email or write a letter (on paper! with a stamp!) that continues to document your interest in the college. In your letter, you should highlight what you hope to add to their college community. Be specific. Now is the time to really show that this college is the place for you.
Be careful, however, not to be annoying or to overstep the bounds of decorum. Don’t sent brownies or flowers. Don’t send a singing telegram to you beloved admissions officer. Don’t send notes in the mail with glitter or stickers in the hopes that you’ll be remembered. You could be remembered for all the wrong reasons and become the butt of jokes around the admissions office. Being overly fawning or clever could backfire. So write a good email or letter and let it go at that.
Also be careful to read directions. Some colleges may not accept anything more than the box you check to remain on the Wait List. Do what the college asks of you.
Send updated grades
If you have finished your final semester, go ahead and send in updated grades (especially if they are strong). This again will show interest, but it will also show the college that you have continued to be a strong student.
Send an additional letter of recommendation
Sometimes you have the option of sending another recommendation letter from teachers or their guidance counselor. But colleges would more than likely want to hear directly from you. Our advice is that any additional letter of recommendation needs to say something new or different about you that didn’t appear in your original application. If there is something new to add that makes a material difference in your application, a letter of recommendation might help
Send updates on accomplishments
This time of year is filled with banquets and award ceremonies. Were you honored for anything? Let the college know. Again, this will help them notice any new achievements that may make you a more attractive candidate than the first time they admissions office reviewed your application.
Do what you can to get off the Wait List, but remain realistic
There are no ways about it: being put on the Wait List stinks. You’re in limbo. You’re literally waiting to see if gods smile upon you and give you a new way into your preferred college or university.
And of course, you’ll be taking this state of being betwixt and between quite personally: you’re not good enough to accept and not bad enough to reject.
But as I have said, the game at this point is not at all personal. It’s not about you. It’s about them. They are trying to manage their budgets and the statistics that will allow them to move up in the rankings. At this point, you are just a data point and a dollar sign.
Things could still fall your way. But you’re better off to set your sites on other opportunities. Again, you may be surprised with a phone call one day from an admissions officer that could rock your world–perhaps in a great way. Or perhaps you’ll have moved on to fall in love with a college that genuinely wanted you in the first instance.
Need help with your Wait List strategy? Or a plan to avoid it altogether?
Our counselors at Great College Advice feel your pain. In the college admissions game, there are few aspects that are more painful than getting put on the Wait List (okay, maybe being rejected outright can be more painful). It’s no fun to be told that you’re good but not great, adequate but inadmissible, eligible but unacceptable.
Nevertheless, as this post points out, there are things you can do to improve your chances. First you need a solid admissions strategy from the outset that takes into accounts the games colleges play with their applicant pools. Second, if you do end up in limbo, then there are things you might do to increase your chances at the margins.
If you need help with any aspect of the admissions process, give us a call or contact us online. We’d be happy to give you a free consultation to figure out how we can help make the college admissions game more successful and less stressful.
Mark Montgomery
CEO and Founder, Great College Advice
