How to Handle Your Waitlists

There’s so much advice floating around about waitlists and letters of continued interest.

Sometimes you can tell when the advice is being dispensed from someone who hasn’t ever sat on the admissions side of the table.

But we’ve sat on that side of the table, and our goal is always to teach you how to think like an admissions officer. Here’s how that perspective affects you during waitlist season.

If you’re an admissions officer and a spot opens up during the waitlist season, you want to fill that spot as quickly as possible without messing up other metrics and parameters that you, as the admissions officer, have to worry about.

You’d much rather call a small number of people who you think are highly likely to say yes, and not have to call hundreds of people just to find someone who is willing to change their plans late in the game.

That’s because colleges and universities (including graduate schools) follow the airplane business model: every seat on an airplane that is empty when the plane takes off is lost revenue for the airline. Same thing with incoming classes at a college. Any seat that doesn’t have a person sitting in it when the fall rolls around means lost revenue.

There’s a reason that colleges often call admissions officers “enrollment managers”: they’re managing not just the admitting part, but also the enrolling part.

And the enrollment role makes them financial managers on top of all their other duties. They are making sure that the college meets whatever revenue and budget goals have been set out for them from the people they report to further up in the administration.

So the priorities for the admissions officer are: fill that open seat, and fill it quickly.

Now that you know what their priorities are, here is what we recommend for your waitlists:

?? FOLLOW THE COLLEGE’S INSTRUCTIONS

Some colleges welcome so-called Letters of Continued Interest; others don’t.

Take colleges at their word when they tell you what they do and don’t want during waitlist season.

The University of California, for example, signals very clearly that they don't care about and don't want letters of continued interest, which makes sense given the huge volume of applications they have to manage, the volume of seats they have to keep filled, and the volume of people on their waitlists. Year in and year out, they struggle to keep up with the volume, so they’re very clear about what they don’t want you to send them.

Here’s UC Irvine, for example:

Contacting our office by email or sending a letter of demonstrated interest will have no impact on your chances of being admitted from the waitlist.

But a small liberal arts school might invite continued communications during the waitlist season. Here’s Wesleyan’s language as an example:

You may send an email describing your interest in attending Wesleyan to?[email protected]. Should we go to the waitlist, we presently have all of the required materials to shape our decision. Therefore, submitting updated grades or additional letters of recommendation is not necessary…. Aside from the letter indicating the strength of your interest, you have already made your best case.

?? DON’T WRITE A NOVEL

Really.

Your letter of continued interest doesn’t need to be long. Even at a small college, they don’t have time to read your novel of a letter. They have a lot of documents to process, and they have to do so quickly.

Your letter of continued interest doesn’t need to be fancy or flowery. Nothing in your application has to be fancy or flowery. Clarity is much more important. That includes your letter of continued interest.

Your letter of continued interest also doesn’t need to declare undying love. You’re not getting married.

What you can do, IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY DONE SO IN THE APPLICATION, AND THEY ARE NOW INVITING YOU TO DO SO, is talk about why you’re a good fit with that college, meaning: what does the college offer that you’re seeking from your college experience? And what do you have to offer the college that it values? By this point in the process, you should have very clear answers to both.

?? DO PRE-COMMIT TO ENROLLING... IF YOU CAN AFFORD TO PRE-COMMIT

In your letter of continued interest, you can pre-commit yourself to attending IF YOU ARE WILLING TO ABIDE BY THAT PROMISE.

You can tell them that you would accept an offer if you were fortunate enough to receive one. And if you really want to make it as easy as possible for them to call you instead of someone else when a spot opens up, you can also say that you would withdraw your other pending applications if you were to receive an offer. (Of course, the minute that promise doesn’t hold true anymore while you are on that waitlist, for example because you have decided to enroll somewhere else, you should withdraw from that waitlist.)

That means you would not be able to accept an offer from that college and continue to stay on other waitlists. And you wouldn’t be able to find out if you’d receive an offer from some other waitlist college you care about more.

Pre-committing assumes you would be willing to pay full fare, because your decision wouldn’t hinge on any other factors, like financial aid. At most colleges in the United States, it can help if you’re full-pay when you’re on the waitlist, meaning that you don’t need financial aid to attend. I don’t like it either, but that’s the reality.

That shouldn’t discourage you from staying in the running with, and even fighting for, waitlist colleges you really care about. They might come up with funding for you. But full-pay does make a waitlisted student more attractive at most schools. ??

If you can pre-commit to accepting, that means they can fill that spot without having to find more scholarship money in their budget. Scholarship funds are usually dispensed first-come, first-serve, so by the time the summer rolls around, those funds might already be gone. (They typically won't tap into their waitlist to fill spots until after they've received their first deposits and done a headcount.)

The bottom line is that you don’t have a lot of leverage on a waitlist.

?? BE PREPARED TO MAKE A DECISION QUICKLY

Because you don’t have leverage on a waitlist, if you do get the happy call making you an offer, be prepared to make a decision quickly. Remember: they want to fill that spot quickly, so if you want time to navel-gaze or negotiate, they can just move to the next person on the list.

Same reasoning for deferrals. They typically don’t grant deferral requests when they make offers from waitlists (note: pre-waitlist deferral requests are different). Their priority during the waitlist season is to fill the seat for that fall. If you aren’t ready to start that fall, they would expect you to reapply when you’re ready.

?? MANAGE YOUR EXPECTATIONS

The chances of getting an offer off of a waitlist are very small. Do put down a deposit at your best offer / best fit before the deposit deadline. Treat it as insurance; you’re reserving your spot there while you’re waiting to see how your waitlists pan out.

?? LET THE OTHERS GO

If there are colleges that you don’t really care about that much, let those waitlists go. There’s no point in staying on them unless there’s a good chance you’d say “Yes” if that call came.