College Planning Blog

The odds are that among the admission decision letters received by college applicants in the coming days will be a few that bear the curious message, “We are pleased to offer you a place on the Wait List.” If you receive such a message, you might find it puzzling. You can’t find the word “congratulations” anywhere in the letter, yet the school is “pleased to offer you…”—what?

Your instincts say that if you are not “in” you must be “out.” Rejected. At the very least, you might convince yourself that it is just a polite denial letter. Before you draw too many conclusions, read the letter carefully. Your application hasn’t been dismissed. It’s simply been put on hold.

Rather than a polite denial, the Wait List offer is a “definite maybe.” Whether you knew it or not, you were on the competitive “bubble” among the candidates at the college in question. You were certainly qualified—deserving of consideration in a close competition—but you were not a shoo-in. When it came time for the admission committee to make very fine distinctions, it chose others over you. By offering you a place on the Wait List, though, the committee is really saying, “We like you. Since we might not get the number of enrollments we need from the initial round of acceptances, we might be able to admit you later.”

While such an explanation does not feel very reassuring as you read it for the first time, you may well have options before this whole thing is over. Hang in there. Most of the selective colleges in the country will admit students from the Wait List every year in numbers ranging from half a dozen to well over 100.

Information about Wait List status and movement is closely guarded. Colleges are sensitive to negative inferences that are made about the “need” to go to the Wait List and prefer to be discrete about the extent of their reliance on it for enrollment. Here is what you need to know—and do—in order to give yourself a competitive edge.

1. Wait Lists will be active because colleges are constantly gambling that their yield on initial offers will be better than expected. They are usually wrong.
2. When they go to the Wait List, admission officers have efficiency in mind. They want to fill their empty seats as quickly as possible. Rather than mailing offers of admission to hundreds of students, they will call or email candidates one at a time until they receive the number of commitments they need.
3. Make sure that the school knows it is your first choice. Write a letter confirming your interest. Visit. Send new grades. Provide new insight into your performance as well as evidence of recent accomplishments that might not have appeared on your initial application.
4. Stay on the radar screen of the staff member who recruits in your area. Make sure they know you are available and ready to accept an offer of admission. Continue to show your interest without becoming a pest.
5. Be sure to provide evidence of your potential “hooks.” Colleges re-define their needs as they go to the Wait List. For example, they may have acquired plenty of tuba players, but now have a need for an oboist.
6. Colleges may need students who won’t require financial assistance. If there had ever been a question about your need for financial aid, be clear about what your family can afford. Your need of assistance could well be a determining factor. Movement from Wait Lists prior to May 1 will probably be limited to students who do not need financial aid.
7. Many Wait List offers will come after the May 1 deadline for submitting enrollment deposits. If such a call comes, you need to be prepared to decide quickly (often in 24 hours) whether you want to forfeit an earlier enrollment at another school in order to take advantage of the acceptance from the Wait List.
8. Don’t allow yourself to become so preoccupied with the Wait List situation that you lose track of your more immediate options. If the Wait List offer doesn’t come, you need to be ready to embrace one of your other options.

So, take heart. The enrollment opportunities from the Wait List are very real. In fact, competing for admission from the Wait List is like playing in a contest that has gone into overtime. If you assume the game is lost, you can’t win. Keep “playing,” then—hard and smart—to give yourself a chance for a happy outcome.

Over the next two weeks I will continue to provide guidance for students as they sort through the process of making final college choices. Contents of this posting are excerpted from Winning the College Admission Game: Strategies for Students and Parents.