Wall Street Journal Article on Waitlists

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pnasty

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Anyone read the story on college waitlists on the front of the personal journal section in the wall street journal? It basically said that the number of students accepting spots went up more than normal, so most schools will have 0-10 spots open where usually they had about 30. Some schools said they weren't going to take students off the waitlist even if they had open spots. I wonder if this relates to med school at all....?

The pressure to fill spots in med school is prob greater, so I cant see them passing up open spots. However, the article mainly cited the fact that students are accepting more spots than normal. Do you think this same trend will be soon for med schools?

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pnasty said:
Some schools said they weren't going to take students off the waitlist even if they had open spots. I wonder if this relates to med school at all....?

Why on earth would a school do that? Or if they do, why would they have a waitlist at all?

Actually, I didn't even know undergrad schools had waitlists up until about a year ago.

And this is obviously not the case with medical schools. I mean, while some do overaccept to the point that there's little to no waitlist movement, I really don't think they would let a spot go unfilled.
 
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i know for a fact that waitlist movement in undergrad is much less significant than med school.
 
Colleges Admit Few Students
Off the Wait List
Many Schools Fill Classes
Without Turning to Backups;
What You Can Do Next
By ANNE MARIE CHAKER
May 16, 2006; Page D1

It's shaping up to be another disappointing year for many students on college wait lists.

A number of selective schools say they are taking very few -- if any -- students from the wait list this year. Harvard University says it will likely take only between five and 10 students, down from the 28 it admitted last year. Georgetown University says it is only taking about 10 students, down from about 70 last year. Others, including Princeton University and Ohio State University, aren't taking any.

Admissions officers say they've been surprised at the large percentage of applicants who accepted their offers of admission. The so-called "yield" -- the percentage of admitted students who actually enroll, a closely-watched figure by everyone from applicants and parents to competing schools -- went up at institutions ranging from Princeton to Emory University, which means they won't need to resort to the wait list.
[Graphic]

Because many top schools saw a record number of applications this year, the expectation among some admissions officers was that yields were going to drop, which had caused them to worry about not being able to fill their seats with enough of the best students. Instead, many hopeful applicants are enrolling in their second- or third-choice schools.

At many schools, the odds against getting in off the list are astronomical, if not outright nil. Last year, Emory, in Atlanta, took 25 students off the wait list but this year it expects to be roughly 50 students over its target class size. The University of Chicago is admitting about seven students from its list this year, compared with 34 last year. Johns Hopkins University says it is only taking a handful at most, about the same as last year. The University of Pennsylvania offered 1,400 applicants a spot on the wait list. In the end, the admissions office expects only some 10 to 15 students to be admitted from it.

Others say they may take a few more students from the wait list than they did last year -- but the competition remains steep. Haverford College, for example, is taking around 40 applicants, up from the 23 it accepted last year. But 305 applicants chose to remain on the list, compared with 200 last year.

Admissions officers aren't necessarily celebrating this trend. Some like to use their wait list to address certain enrollment needs in their freshman class -- whether it's a type of athlete, a major in a specific area of study or a student from an underrepresented state.

The wait list also allows the schools to boost their yield rates. By saying they wish to remain on the wait list, students have indicated a desire to attend. Before extending an offer of admission from the wait list, colleges often try to gauge whether a student is still interested in the school, by calling or emailing.

Often, wait-list activity comes in waves: Colleges that overfilled their classes one year, for instance, might react the following year by accepting fewer applicants outright by April, and admitting more students from their wait lists. That's what happened this year at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, which had overfilled its class last year by about 70 students.

"We went over last year," says Stephen Farmer, UNC's director of admissions. "So we were chicken this year." The school chose to admit fewer students outright and plans to admit about 100 students from the wait list this year. Because this year is seeing generally low wait-list activity, things may be brighter for next year's waitlisted applicants.

Though many factors are beyond an applicant's control, showing some interest can play a big role, too. Here are some things you can do to improve your chances of getting off the wait list as spots open up in the coming weeks:
• Show you're still interested. Admissions offices don't want to extend an admission offer to someone who is no longer interested in enrolling. The University of Pennsylvania gives waitlisted students a one to four rating, with a one signifying a top-choice applicant. Still, it's possible to move up in that ranking, says admissions dean Lee Stetson, and showing interest in attending Penn is one factor that can help. The school welcomes a note or a phone call to the admissions office indicating that a student appreciates making the wait list and hopes that they will ultimately be accepted.

[Schools Photos]
• Offer new information. New marking period grades, a new award, a new letter of recommendation: If you were on the cusp, these are things that can help push you over the edge. Think creatively without being gimmicky. Jim Bock at Swarthmore recalls a student who drafted a petition on why she should be admitted to Swarthmore. She went so far as to visit campus and even got the dean of the college to sign it. "She didn't get in because of the petition," says Mr. Bock. "But it was a creative twist."

• Don't be a pest. Show eagerness but don't pester admissions offices with phone calls and emails every day. "We've had kids who send us a postcard every day," says Charles Deacon, dean of admissions at Georgetown, who frowns on the technique. "The best person to intercede for you is your guidance counselor," he says, unless you have established a relationship with an admissions person on the staff.


Brooke Epstein, a private-school student who lives in Newton, Mass., was accepted to Emory in April. But she was also placed on the wait list at four other schools -- including Northwestern University. In part to determine whether she was still interested in Northwestern, she got on a plane to Chicago to check it out. "I liked it," she says, adding that she visited the admissions office to let them know. "I told them this was really a place I could see myself going."

She's still waiting to hear.

Write to Anne Marie Chaker at [email protected]1
 
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