Making Your Decision After the Colleges Make Theirs : How Wait-Lists Work

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A wait-list consists of applicants who are not admitted outright but who are notified that they will be considered for admission if space becomes available later in the spring. What should you make of a letter that essentially puts you in limbo? Being placed on a wait-list means that your file will be considered again if the college has fewer acceptances than it anticipated when mailing out offers of admission. Because no college gets a yes from every admitted student, they all accept more than they can accommodate. On the basis of past experience, they calculate an estimated yield from their offers. Then they wait until after the May 1 deadline to see how many students send in their deposits. Because of competition for good students, colleges know that some of their wait-listed students are likely to be wait-listed at other, comparable colleges. So they may even take students from the wait-list before May 1 to get a head start on their rivals. Sometimes they may take students in stages: twenty prime candidates before May 1 and thirty more on May 10, when they have a firmer fix on the yield. The process is very similar to the way airlines fill their planes. It is common to overbook a plane, since some passengers will be no-shows. If empty seats remain when the plane is ready to leave, those seats can be filled by standbys who know that they may or may not get a seat, but have been patiently and hopefully waiting.

If more students accept admission than planned, the college may have to increase the number of freshmen in each dorm room, convert student lounges into bedrooms, use trailers or motels for temporary housing, or drastically cut the number of transfer students who will be offered admission that spring. All of these have happened. Estimating yield is very hard to do. One enterprising campus purchased smaller dorm room furniture when it found it had to house three students in rooms meant for two. And of course, if a college finds itself in an oversold situation, it does not take anyone from the wait-list.

Who Goes on the Wait-List?

Over the last few years, wait-lists have gotten longer, as colleges find predicting yield more difficult. This reflects, for the most part, the increasing number of highly qualified candidates who apply to several selective institutions. A wait-list decision can mean that a candidate was fully qualified to attend and would indeed have been admitted if only the college had the room. It can also be a gentle way for a college to say no to a weaker candidate it finds difficult to deny outright for other reasons, such as a legacy applicant. A few colleges will even place an exceptionally qualified candidate on the wait-list if they strongly believe the student will receive and accept an offer elsewhere. 

I was put on the wait-list. The dean sent me a very nice letter that said, “After long and careful consideration, the admission committee has decided to place your name on the waiting list. . . . I congratulate you on your fine record of accomplishments, which deserve a much more fitting recognition than I can provide right now. I hope you will remain interested in our college and that you will choose to hold a place on our waiting list. I also hope that I may ultimately have a chance to offer you a place in our entering class.”

Accompanying the letter was an attachment stating that about 1,000 students were placed on the wait-list, that about 300 to 400 were expected to remain on it, and that over a ten-year period the average annual number of acceptances from the wait-list was less than 30. At least they were up-front about how tough it would be. - Wait-listed student

Because of a combination of all or some of these factors, many wait-lists are as big as the entire freshman class, or bigger. The “Principles of Good Practice” of the National Association for College Admission Counseling say that each college should tell you how many applicants have been placed on the wait-list for your year and for each of several previous years, along with the number on the wait-list eventually offered admission, but you may have to ask. One university stands out for its steadfast refusal to do this; it is rumored to offer a spot on the wait-list to many thousands of students every year. The number admitted from a wait-list can vary greatly, from zero to low single digits to several dozen or more. It all depends on the ability of a college to predict its yield accurately in the first place. The importance of predicting yield is one reason colleges have embraced early decision so readily, and why some colleges consider demonstrated interest in making their admissions decisions.

I didn’t like being wait-listed. It felt like a consolation prize. Why would they wait-list so many people when clearly they’re letting in very few? It seemed so pointless.  - Senior who was wait-listed by Harvard University and declined  to remain on the list

The domino effect from wait-lists can be sizable, widespread, and disruptive to colleges. As students accept admission from the wait-list at a college, they withdraw from another college, which now finds itself with empty spots that they, in turn, must fill from their wait-lists. A college with a full class on May 1 may have space on May 15 after losing some students to other colleges. And so on.