More Students Stuck in College Wait List Purgatory April 21, 2010
Ian Welham discusses the increase of applicants this year on college waiting lists.
Is your child in wait list purgatory? She’s not alone. 2010 is a record year for students placed on the waiting list, wondering where they will attend classes next fall. Duke University has 3,382 applicants on its wait list — 856 more than a year ago—a number almost equal to the total number of students they will accept. In other words, Duke could fill an entire second freshmen class from its waiting list.
Elite schools received a record number of applications this year and are using the wait list to hedge their bets. Duke admitted they ran out of time to consider each application adequately. Yale has placed almost 1,000 applicants on their waiting list — up more than 150 students from last year. Dartmouth increased its waiting list by 80 people to 1,740. M.I.T. increased its waiting list by more than half this year!
Does this mean that more students will be accepted off the wait list? At most schools, that’s unlikely. Duke, for example, expects to promote no more than 60 off the waiting list. M.I.T. took less than 80 last year.
How does the admissions department decide whom to take? Christopher Guttentag, Duke’s dean of undergraduate admissions, admitted in an interview that Duke does not rank students on the waiting list but waits to see if there is a need that must be met. For example, if there are too many engineer students they may offer a spot to an English major. Or if they have too many acceptances from New Jersey, they might dig into the pile looking for a student from Wyoming.
For many students who would prefer a ‘Yes’ or ‘No,” dealing with the unknown is torture. If you have a student who’s on a wait list and wants to get off, our latest newsletter tells how. Check out the April issue cover story at http://completecollegeplanningsolutions.com/pages-faqs/newsletters/
