For those of us who have grown accustomed to having our most trivial inquiries answered in seconds by our favorite search engine, not knowing the answer to a question instantly can be frustrating. I hit my personal rock bottom of information impatience the day I actually pulled out my smartphone to search for the answer to Final Jeopardy while the contestants were still writing their answers on the television screen. The college application process can seem like an archaic and slow motion process for the need-to-know-now generation of students who are just graduating from high school. Even though most colleges and universities now offer fast and easy online applications, the acceptance procedure at some schools can still take several weeks or even months, and is often painfully slow. After all the anticipation and uncertainty, when the school’s letter arrives in the mail, it should come with a sense of some finality: acceptance or denial, and at least the agony of waiting and wondering is done. But what if you receive a letter that neither confirms your acceptance nor denies your entry to the school? What if the letter informs you that you have been placed on the college’s “wait list”? Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: college admission, college admissions, waitlist, WiseChoice
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Welcome to college admissions limbo, aka, the wait list. You aren’t quite accepted, but you aren’t quite denied either, ergo, limbo. First, it is important to understand what is a waitlist. Colleges employ waitlists to protect themselves against the uncertainty of accepted students. When students who have been accepted opt not to enroll, the college examines their waitlist for the next student to be admitted.

So what should you do if you are waitlisted?
First, you need to decide if you really want to stay on the waitlist. That is, would you be content with attending another school that you have been accepted to? If you are satisfied attending elsewhere, don’t bother with the waitlist. You are potentially taking someone else’s spot that you don’t want anyway (and increasing the anxiety level of another soon-to-be freshman elsewhere). Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: wait list, waitlist, Waitlist acceptance rates
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