It’s past Memorial Day, and while some high school seniors are sporting new college sweatshirts, others are still in purgatory on a waitlist. The bad news? The more time passes, the lower the odds of getting off the list. But the good news is, if a student is on a waitlist, he or she is still in the game. Here are five things to know about this particularly mysterious aspect of college admissions.
1. Waitlists do move There are more students applying to colleges these days, but if you’re on the waitlist, those are not the numbers that matter for you. Instead, what’s working in your favor are the students who apply to many schools — and can, obviously, attend only one. The increasingly popular Common Application, which allows students to apply to multiple schools without too much extra paperwork, only adds to the fluidity. These dynamics make waitlists more active than they used to be. In fact, while in the past waiting lists were a second chance for students, these days they function as much as a second chance for schools to achieve the right number of students they need to build their incoming freshman class. Some schools even adopt a strategy of making fewer offers initially and then going to the waitlist as a way to guard against overenrollment.
2. Waitlists are not ranked Waitlists do not move mechanically, so there is not a magic number of offers that will determine whether or not you get in. “Once a college has a solid sense of the students who are on their waitlist, they re-evaluate the applications based on many factors,” says one former admissions official. Admissions experts suggest applicants treat the waitlist like the second admissions process it basically is and advocate for themselves and make the best case that they can.
3. Showing interest is key Schools need a high “yield” from the waitlist — the number of students who are accepted and enroll — so making sure a school knows that you absolutely will attend if you get an offer can provide an important edge. Send in additional materials, recommendations, as well as any new awards, recognitions or accomplishments since the initial application process. The only caveat: experts say that if a school has a formal policy about sending new material, it’s best to observe it unless you’ve done something really spectacular that admissions officials should be aware of.
4. Senior grades matter Senior slumps are real and here’s where they can really hurt. Often to help make decisions, admissions officials will ask for those last-semester senior-year grades, and a drop-off can mean the difference between getting an offer from the waitlist or not. So if you really want off the waitlist, study for those final exams and, as they say in road racing, “run through the tape” as you finish your high school career.
5. Money matters more Waitlists complicate the picture for students who need financial aid. In many instances, colleges — even ones that are “need-blind” during the normal admissions process — have to consider a student’s financial circumstances when deciding who to take from the waitlist. And by this point, the most generous aid packages are usually long gone. If financial aid is a deal breaker for you, think hard about your choices and whether other schools that made offers might be a better bargain. After all, the research shows that where you go to school matters less than you might think, so don’t saddle yourself with unnecessary debt.
Rotherham, who writes the blog Eduwonk, is a co-founder and partner at Bellwether Education, a nonprofit working to improve educational outcomes for low-income students. School of Thought, his education column for TIME.com, appears every Thursday.
See “Low Graduation Rates: It’s Not Just Student-Athletes.”
See TIME’s Pictures of the Week.
