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Here’s some serious Straight Talk.
AKA Lisa’s post "Ivy Day" a.m. rant.
Waitlists are THE most selfish strategy colleges use to ensure every seat is filled come the first day of school.
Waitlists have everything to do with the college’s own concern for its financial stability.
Waitlists have NOTHING to do with how much a college still really wants your teen.
Here’s the REAL deal:
The college does its best to predict yield. It purposely accepts more students than it really wants to enroll and uses the prior year’s percentages to guesstimate how many of those accepted students will indeed attend.
Some years, a college over-enrolls like UT-Austin did last year.
That messes things up for the following year’s freshman class. Like it did this year.
In years when a college miscalculates that yield (meaning less students enroll from the admitted class) it digs into the waitlist. After May 1st. And sometimes well into August!
So some years students are moved off the list.
Some years none are. I mean NONE of hundreds. Zero.
The list is often not ranked. At least not publicly.
Need is often used as a factor for who gets off the list.
And if you want to really be sick to your stomach, dig in to how connections are used to move the wealthiest OFF the list.
Waitlists get deeper and more widely used every year. It’s flat out BS what it does to the psyche of high school seniors and their parents.
“What can I do to help my teen get off the list and get accepted?!”
Stop it. Please.
If your teen has been waitlisted, follow the instructions the college provides, accept the spot (or don’t), grieve the loss, and then MOVE ON.
Your teen should graciously accept the invitation to continue his or her learning elsewhere & deposit at one school & get excited about learning everything there is to know about housing options and meal plans.
Buy the sweatshirt. Then the bumper sticker.
Don’t hold out an ounce of hope. Don’t see it as a “soft” rejection.
It’s a rejection. Move. On. For. The. Sake. Of. Your. Teen.
(And if your teen overreached and has no options, book a Strategy Session with me)
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