Waitlisted? What to Consider

If you are placed on a waitlist, you haven’t been accepted and you haven’t been denied. You’re in limbo, and that can be stressful. Students rarely anticipate they will be placed on a waitlist at one of the colleges where they have applied, but they very well may be.

If you have received a waitlist letter from a college, there are several factors you may need to consider in deciding whether or not to accept that spot on the waitlist:

                • Uncertainty. You may not know if you have been admitted off the waitlist until sometime during the summer.

                • Cost. You will need to make a firm commitment to another school and send in a deposit to ensure a seat in the fall. If you are accepted off the waitlist you will forfeit the deposit made to that fi rst school.

                • Financial aid. Make sure the school where you are waitlisted will still have aid available when you hear about your acceptance. Some colleges may have already awarded most of their aid or scholarships.

                • Pressure. Your continued achievement— a particularly successful second semester both academically and in your extracurricular activities— may be a fundamental factor in a college’s decision about who to admit off the waitlist.

                • The hard truth. Be realistic about the low acceptance rate for most waitlists. It is statistically much less likely that you will be admitted from the waitlist than from the regular applicant pool.

Tomorrow: Waitlisted? Questions to Ask