Double the Fun

This year’s admissions responses from selective and highly selective colleges has left many talented seniors feeling like they’ve been beaten up and left in ditch. Students with stellar grades, astronomical SATs and a deep record of extracurricular activities and community service have not received the “yes” answers that they dreamed of or even half expected. The internet today, the day after so-called Ivy Day when Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn and Princeton release their regular decisions, has been awash with a plaintive refrain: “What do they want?” The short answer is that that is unknowable and ever-changing. The long answer is that data is out there for most schools on what GPA range or test scores their recent admits offered, but it is much harder to quantify the more important elements of a holistic admissions process. Colleges and universities have said for years that their holistic process takes into account more than just numbers. However, when most schools went test-optional in the pandemic environment, many students seemed to forget that test scores are just one data point. And without that data point, the factors of academic rigor, leadership, community involvement and recommendation letters gain importance. Nevertheless, thousands or tens of thousands more students applied to newly test-optional institutions. This put colleges into the enviable position of having the most diverse group of students in history to choose from, but the unenviable position of knowing less than normal about expected yield, or how many admitted students will accept the offer and enroll. This leads me to the dreaded waiting. In between acceptance and denial of admission comes the waitlist. A school essentially tells a waitlisted student that he or she is academically and otherwise qualified to attend the institution, but they don’t have space to give a solid “yes.” The student usually must decide to opt to be added to the waitlist. Then what happens? Most of the selective and highly selective schools do not weight or rank students on the waitlist. That is, when they go to their waitlist for five students, they don’t take them in order of the top five test scores or GPA. Instead, it becomes even more random than during the regular decision process. Admissions officials are looking to form a balanced class of mathematicians and historians, athletes and musicians, artists and engineers, entrepreneurs and humanitarians, legacies and first-generation college goers, and many have diversity of race, ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic status and geography as a goal. As the first-year class begins to take shape with students committing to a school, the officials look at the balance of these characteristics and any other institutional priorities represented. If the enrolled students are skewing heavily to the coasts, they might look to the waitlist for students from the Midwest. If they aren’t increasing diversity as much as they would like, they might look to the waitlist. If their tuba player or Pride Club president or lots of French majors graduated and they see few enrolling, the waitlist probably has the people they are looking for. What I’m saying is that the waitlist is even more subjective than the regular process and waitlists this year are longer than ever before. Some schools offered a waitlist spot to more students than are in their whole first-year class, so even though there will be more waitlist movement than normal this year, your chances are still very low. If you feel you must, take your waitlist spot and if they allow it, write a letter of continued interest. Then forget about that school, commit to a school that has admitted you and allow yourself to fall in love. Attend the accepted student events, Zoom with a current student and join social media groups for admitted students. If you give it a chance, you may discover that you have found your dream school instead of waiting in vain for Godot. Terry Chevako Bava is an independent college counselor who demystifies the college application process and advises students and families every step of the way, from the beginning of the college search through applying for financial aid and evaluating admission offers. Visit her website or book a free consultation today.