Waiting list means, You're not in and you're
not out. It's not a great place to be and it can be a
form of disappointment and slowly fading hopes about being
accepted to your most-favored college.
Waiting lists are most common at collage that always
have an excess of quality applicants. Have you ever wondered
how colleges and universities get just the right number
of freshman to enroll.
Let's suppose a college has 1,000 open slots for its
new freshman class. After all the thousands of applications
are reviewed and final admission decisions have been made,
perhaps 2,000 letters of acceptance are sent out. After
years of practice, this college knows that its yield is
50 percent. That means that, historically, half of those
applicants offered admission will accept. It's a kind
of natural phenomenon.
However, the college has to have a contingency plan just
in case they don't quite get their 50 percent yield. That's
where the Wait List comes in. The Wait List is made up
of applicants who were just not quite good enough to be
offered outright acceptance, but they have been judged
capable of doing the college's level of work. In fact,
some Wait List students are the equal of regular admits;
there just isn't room to admit them all. If enrollment
falls short in any given year, the college goes to its
Wait List and offers admission to those student.
If you end up on a Wait List, don't hold your breath
waiting to be accepted. Sometimes--at the last minute--a
formerly enrolled student will withdraw his or her enrollment.
That leaves a hole that can be filled from the Wait List.
If you're on that Wait List, it could be you being offered
admission. It's a very long shot, though. In most cases
a student who is wait listed should pursue other colleges.
There are avenues of persuasion such as a final flurry
of personal marketing or letters of appeal from counselors
or alumni, but these are usually not successful. I hope
you're not in waiting listed.
The most important thing as far as waiting list is concern
is your place, if you are among first 5 candidates then
you have a fair chance to be in that particular collage. |