Blogs and Stories
Dirty Secrets of College Waitlists
Getty Images
As acceptance letters hit mailboxes, record numbers of students could be stuck in waitlist limbo. In a Daily Beast exclusive, admissions officers dish about the tricks of getting in off the list—and why you shouldn’t send cookies.
Plus, check out the 25 best value colleges.
The waitlist. It’s the fate that awaits hundreds of thousands of high school seniors this week as they open college admissions letters. The bad news? As few as 15 percent will make it off the waitlist at the most selective schools, and waitlists are likely to be longer this spring than ever before.
“We always have the parents who want to buy us a Mercedes or pay our mortgages. Usually we’d laugh them off, but money is tight this year. I’m telling my staff: Send them directly to the development office.”
The prospect of waiting even longer for a final answer can drive students—and their parents—to desperate acts. “I had one mother last year who called me every single day for two months, sometimes multiple times a day,” says an admissions officer at an Ivy League school. “I finally had to say, ‘Your son is not getting in and you may wish to seek psychiatric help for yourself.’” (Jump to the next page for more quotes and stories from admissions officers)
But this may also be the year that waitlisted students have the best shot ever of getting in… if they’re smart about it, because more students may turn down their top choices. As the economy continues to spiral downward, admissions officers say they have little sense of what to expect in terms of waitlist activity over the next two months.
That’s because this waitlist season appears to be shaping up to mimic last year’s—a spring that totally baffled admissions departments nationwide. Several factors made the admissions cycle volatile: the high school class of 2008 numbered nearly 3.4 million, the largest in U.S. history; there was a swell of kids submitting eight or more college applications; and Princeton, the University of Virginia and Harvard got rid of early admissions. Add in the precarious economy, and dozens of colleges overestimated their “yield”— the percentage of admitted students who ultimately enrolled.
“It got harder to separate the very committed from the applicants just window-shopping,” Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. “Schools hedged their bets by upping the number of applicants they put on the waitlist.”
Certain schools suddenly found themselves in an unprecedented position: selling their programs to talented applicants. Harvard ended up taking some 200 students from its waitlist, up from 50 the previous year. Princeton and Boston College both doubled their number of waitlist offers; the University of Pennsylvania let in one-third more. Swarthmore College’s Dean of Admissions Jim Bock tells the story of one girl who wrote a letter exuding her deepest desire to attend Swarthmore and promising it was her first choice. But when he offered her a spot off the waitlist, she turned him down. "She said, 'Why didn't you just take me in April?’” Bock says.
So what's the secret to getting in off the waitlist? The Daily Beast spoke with high school guidance counselors, college consultants, and current and former admissions officers around the country about the best strategies for getting out of limbo and into your first choice.
The Right Dumps Carrie
Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
What's Joe's Problem?
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Geithner's Stock Plummeting
Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.
Top 10 College Admissions Tips
Kathleen Kingsbury covers education for The Daily Beast. She also contributes to Time magazine, where she has covered business, health and education since 2005.
The Campus Suicide Crisis
Kathleen Kingsbury covers education for The Daily Beast. She also contributes to Time magazine, where she has covered business, health and education since 2005.
How to Write a Winning Ivy League Essay
Kathleen Kingsbury covers education for The Daily Beast. She also contributes to Time magazine, where she has covered business, health and education since 2005.
If our exclusive private K-12 school, which has always had 10 applicants for every slot is any indication, these losers who love sticking it to achievers are going to learn to beg this year. Our school is begging parents to talk up the school. Letters went out two weeks ago and for the first time the school "will continue to accept applications until all slots are filled".
Unlike the "best" list the writer had last week, in which only one college west of Chicago was snobbishly included, this column works. I would recommend the writer since she now has an audience beyond the New York Sophisticate market (the kind that use summer as a verb) that she be like the Internet and be more democratic and less fascist in her thinking about how higher education is for all who can achieve.
For my son going into college this year, we used a new company called "My College Agent". They provided us with a to-do list and whatever assistance we needed in all aspects. Highly recommended as I did not understand all the requirements or angles to use.
College have again fooled students and parents alike with their "select" policies. The college system (more like business) has made students feel that if they do not get into certain schools they will somehow not have a good career or success. The truth is a History degree from Harvard is just about as useless as the one from the local State school. The name recognition can be good for certain degrees like Law or Medicine but the best lesson future students can learn is it depends on personal drive and initiative to be successful in life. And most school don't teach useful life lessons, rather life experience is the best teacher. But I suppose most people will learn when they get that useless degree from Harvard or Yale and can't find a job.....
"but we hear terrible stories all the time about kids who ended up with nowhere to go in the fall."
Nowhere to go? That's ridiculous. Success depends on the person and not the school you go to. Take a semester at a tech and transfer!
I LOVE Larry from Kansas-----"summering as a verb"-----crack me up! I've got six children in private schools in a large city-----we are getting ready to tackle colleges, and yes, its daunting, but it will all work out. Failure and rejection make people better across the board. Its not cancer, and there are bigger fish to fry. Larry from Kansas should be making a living writing!
I am surprised that people still think a fancy college education will get them everything. It doesn't. I had one, so did the husband, but it doesn't mean a young woman or man will get a better job, or even that after graduation a student can find a job. I'm teaching my son to follow me, I make more money in the arts than I did in a medical career. My college education is nothing more than a memory now.
Get straight A's and UC Davis or Tufts as a freshman and apply to Stanford as a sophomore. I have two friends who did exactly that and were admitted, graduating with honors three years later. Did they get a better education? Probably not, but Stanford produces a great alumni magazine.
Larry from Kansas seems bitter for being from a boring state. Can't blame him.
Tina:
When Daily Beast first appeared, I thought you had an open-mind about public policy issues. Now I detect a bias to the right. Your stories are tinged with a critical edge towards the efforts of the Obama administration. Or am I wrong?
Don't want to get wait-listed at one of the 'best' schools? Have parents with money. A multi-million dollar donation will assure anyone of admission to any university in the country.
I'm glad that I'm soon to be leaving university than trying to get into it. Although I don't think that high school students in Canada are in a similar position.
The school of Hard Knocks is free (if you can survive).......
Well,well,seems like Washington U in St. Louis has quite the wait-list rep...2 of my 3 children & this year, my niece were wait-listed at WU[we are consistent, although,not huge contributors to the Medical school!] the truth is "St. Louis kids"
don't fit their demographic, but, they are great marketing genius's to wait list 10.000 whew! Fact is my children went to the schools where they were wanted & appreciated a real winning combo...save the expense & prestige for grad school or not!@#$
Thank you daily beast! I am currently a high school student in Maryland. I have been excepted to Chatham, Campbell, LeMoyne, Shepherd, and Ohio University. However, I am on the waiting list for Temple University, which happens to be my top choice. I want to go there so badly it's unreal.
I had planed to write them and discribe my eager ambition to become a Temple student. I would like to major in film. I have several film-projects I have made in the past two years, some of which are pretty well done (not trying to brag).Should I submit one with a letter?
yes, yes! do it! good luck, i'm in the same position -- wait listed from my top choice :( but it's not the end of the world, don't worry!
just read your entry. My son, also a high school senior, wants to make films.
He applied and was accepted into LeMoyne, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Suny Cortland, St. John Fisher, and Rochester Institute of Technology. He chose RIT as they have an outstanding film program, although he was accepted into the New Media Interactive Design program. He is hoping to transfer to film and animation after ,as he says, "kick butt his first year". Keep your chin up. There are more than a few ways to get to where you are dreaming of going. work hard!
I've been waitlisted at Columbia and it's my number 1 choice. I don't have any updates to my grades since I applied. I was thinking of contacting them to let them know I'm still interested and they're my top choice. Is this a good idea? If so, who should I contact? Is email better than a snail mail? Any suggestions?
Just a clarification about Columbia. I am on the wait list for grad school.
Thank you.
As a first time user, your comment has been submitted for review. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a day or two for your comment to be reviewed, depending on the time of week and the volume of comments we receive.
Please log in to leave comments.