How do waitlists work college admissions

If you really want to attend a school that waitlisted you, communicate that message quickly and clearly. Write a letter or email and ask that it be included in your file. You should state in no uncertain terms assuming you mean it that if you are accepted, you will without question attend. It's important to mention specific reasons why you continue to believe the school is the best fit for you. Request an interview , even if you interviewed with the school already.

Face-time can make a difference. Use this opportunity to showcase your most recent accomplishments awards or quarterly grades and to reiterate your commitment to attend the school if chosen. Most importantly: do not let your GPA slip even a bit. Work with a tutor if you need to get your senior year grades up.

If you are put on the waitlist, you're at the mercy of the college. Hold out hope, but put down that deposit. Check with the admissions office to see if the college will accept additional application materials, including final grades or new test scores. We're seeing increasing numbers of students submit scores on both tests. You might feel tempted to take a year off from academics altogether and apply to your first-choice school again next year.

We caution against this route! It is easier to transfer to the school of your choice from a less prestigious school than to start again from scratch even if you spend your year off doing something productive and character-building.

Generally, waiting lists are kept by highly selective schools or those that have low rates of students who enroll after acceptance. Source: Peterson's.

Source: Time. Source: U. Source: Inside Higher Ed. Although it may be disappointing not being admitted to one school, being accepted to other colleges is a huge accomplishment. Once a student as processed the new, he or she should do the following to move forward.

In order to make an informed decision about whether or not to stay on a wait list, students should get as much information as they can about their chances of getting into the school.

How many individuals will they wait-list in a typical year? What percentage of individuals on the wait list typically end up being offered admission? When will wait-listed students be notified if they are accepted or denied? After deciding to stay on a waiting list, a student should let the school know as soon as possible. A wait-listed student should keep options open. The following tips can help:.

It is always great to be specific about what programs you plan to take advantage of if admitted. If a student finds out he or she has been admitted into the first-choice college after all, that student should quickly accept the offer, and let any backup school the student will not be attending know right away, so the admissions office can fill that slot with a wait-listed student at that college.

When applying to colleges, students will have a lot of questions about how waiting lists work. We have interviewed the following experts to get their perspectives on college wait lists and how students should handle being wait-listed:. In this video, Dakotah Eddy, assistant director of admissions consulting at Veritas Prep, discusses how students can get off a wait list and be admitted. Getting waitlisted doesn't mean sitting around and waiting as the word implies. Rather, there are several actions you can take at this time to increase your odds of getting off the college waitlist.

Here are our top six tips to help you raise your chances of securing an acceptance from the waitlist at your top-choice school. One of the best things you can do during this time is to write a letter to the school you've been waitlisted at emphasizing your continued interest and how the school is your top choice. Remember that colleges want to admit applicants who are very likely to attend this gives them a better "yield," as it's called.

Note that this type of letter is non-binding, so you're still allowed to change your mind later on! Your letter of interest can be an email to your admissions officer or regional dean, or even a note on your college's waitlist response form many schools use this form or a similar form to confirm whether an applicant wants to remain on the waitlist or not.

Below is what the Tufts undergraduate admissions blog writes about how waitlisted applicants can and should express their interest in the school bold emphasis mine :. Maybe check in one more time with your area's admissions counselor Meanwhile, Wake Forest University's admissions website directly implores waitlisted applicants to send a letter of interest and an update to their regional dean bold emphasis mine :.

This is your chance to convey your interest in attending Wake Forest while also describing how the final months of your senior year are progressing. In particular, we are interested in knowing more about recent academic success in the classroom. Nevertheless, some colleges specifically ask waitlisted applicants not to send any additional information, including letters.

This rule can apply even if the college you've been waitlisted at is your top choice. For example, here's what Stony Brook University says applicants can do if they've been waitlisted bold emphasis mine :. We encourage you to choose another college for the fall, and we will contact you if your application status changes.

Note: When I use the word "letter" here, I mean a letter you write to the school. Don't send any additional letters of recommendation or letters written on your behalf by counselors or teachers. These types of materials are typically ignored by colleges and, if submitted, won't raise your odds of getting off the waitlist. The only exception to this rule is if a college specifically says it's open to accepting extra rec letters. One example is Hampshire College , whose website explicitly states that applicants who've been waitlisted may submit "a new letter of recommendation" or a letter showing the applicant's interest in the school.

If you've had any notable accomplishments since getting waitlisted, you can actually enhance your application by sharing these successes with the school that's waitlisted you. In general, these should be highly relevant accomplishments and updates. If you're not applying for a science major, it might not be that beneficial to tell the school about your successful science project, for instance.

You can typically update your school on what you've been up to via either the waitlist response form which most schools will give you online or a letter or email see Tip 1 for more details on how to do this. Even if you haven't had any major achievements recently, try to draw attention to any positive changes in your life, such as awards you've received, good or better grades you've gotten more on this in Tip 3 , and so on.

Even just a general update might be appropriate at some schools the school will usually state whether this is appropriate or not on their website. For example, in regard to what waitlisted applicants can do to raise their odds of getting accepted, Pomona states, "Sending a brief email update in April about what you've been up to since our last contact is entirely appropriate and welcome.

What's more, some schools, such as Johns Hopkins , allow you to send an updated resume if you wish to highlight any changes to or accomplishments in your extracurricular activities. As with the letter of interest detailed above, however, some colleges will not accept additional materials or information than what you originally submitted for your application.

In these cases, you won't be able to update the school on any new achievements you have, so don't try to send an update since it won't have any positive effect on your chances of getting admitted! Even though you'll only have a month or two of high school left by the time you've been waitlisted, it's still important to get good grades in all your classes.

Many colleges allow and encourage! This could be a major improvement to a specific grade in a class you're taking or new grades or transcripts that have only recently been released and that are more recent than your mid-year report. For example, Vanderbilt recommends that waitlisted applicants "consider submitting any substantially relevant new information e.

You can send an updated transcript or write a brief email or letter detailing your recent grades. This generally just means keeping in touch via email. Schools don't typically allow this, but if a college is willing to interview waitlisted applicants or let them come to campus to interview, it's worth it to take them up on this offer. Make sure you prepare for the interview and are able to answer key questions such as why you want to go to this school and what you hope to do with your education in the future.

Yes, it's cheesy—but thinking positive will help you get through this trying time! The college waitlist is a list of applicants who might or might not be offered admission to a particular college.

Schools usually start to admit applicants off the waitlist after May 1 and will continue to admit applicants until they've filled their entire freshman class. How likely it is you'll be admitted off the college waitlist depends mostly on the following factors:. If you're waitlisted at a school, there are four steps you should take, in this order:. Finally, here are six tips you can use to try to raise your chances of getting admitted off the college waitlist:.

Maybe you didn't get waitlisted—maybe you got rejected. Trust me, I know the feeling. Get tips on how to deal with the crushing pain of college rejection —and then learn how to move on to new and better things!

Need help applying to college? Get advice with our step-by-step guide , and don't forget to use our college acceptance calculator to estimate your chances of getting into your dream school. We can help. PrepScholar Admissions is the world's best admissions consulting service. We combine world-class admissions counselors with our data-driven, proprietary admissions strategies.

We've overseen thousands of students get into their top choice schools , from state colleges to the Ivy League. We know what kinds of students colleges want to admit.