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Navigating the Waitlist Headache
Tomorrow is May 1st. In college admissions circles, I guess we can call this Decision Day. It's the date by which most U.S. colleges require students to either accept or decline an official offer of admission. It usually involves some sort of deposit fee in order for a student to secure their position.
It may be a tough decision for some students, but it's a good place to be. You'll be going to college somewhere. But it may be a struggle for waitlisted students. If you've been accepted to the University of Oregon, but you've been waitlisted at Brown, you still have to let Oregon know what you want to do by the 1st. At some point in the future, you may be forfeiting a deposit.
The thing to consider is the waitlist criteria. Almost universally, waitlisted students aren't ranked. So if UCLA has waitlisted a thousand students, they are all pooling in the same bucket. The university is waiting to see which of the "accepted" students are going to put down their deposit on May 1st. After that date, they'll know how many open spots are available. But they don't start by picking the "top" student from the wait list, because there isn't one.
What universities are likely looking for is a balanced or diverse student body. So whether they pick an Engineering hopeful from Namibia or an Anthropology hopeful from Orange County is going to depend on the texture of the students that they've already admitted as of May 1st.
What can a waitlisted student do? Drafting letters of continued demonstrated interest can help. Students may get a huge boost if they have new activities, scores, or publications to share with the college since the submission of their original application.
Beyond that, it is, in fact, a waiting game. One which hopefully resolves for most students sooner, rather than later.
Labels: Navigating the Waitlist Headache
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