Wait list is a term used in United States college admissions to describe a situation in which a college or university has not formally accepted a particular student for admission, but at the same time may offer admission in the next few months if spaces become available.[1] It is a contingent offer only, and may mean an offer of admission in the future, or it may not, depending on circumstances. It has been described as a type of college admissions "purgatory",[2] or being held in "the higher-ed equivalent of limbo".[3]
Within a month of sending out acceptance letters to applicants in April, colleges and universities will know fairly soon how many of these applicants will choose to attend their university when they receive deposits. The percent of applicants offered admission, who decide to accept, is known as the admissions yield,[4] and this proportion varies somewhat from year to year, and reflects economic conditions as well as interest in a given university. According to several reports, colleges and universities use wait lists to try to hedge their guesses about how many students will ultimately decide to accept their offers of admission in any given academic year, with the idea being to build a "a reservoir of qualified students to draw from to replace successful applicants who choose to go elsewhere."[5] If fewer students say yes, then colleges will often go to their wait lists to try to find replacements.[1] In 2010, according to one source, roughly 10% of college applicants were put on a wait list.[2] Wait lists tend to be used by elite and selective universities as well as second-tier liberal arts colleges who are uncertain about how many students will show up in the fall; for example, Stanford and Yale put 1,000 students on their wait lists and Duke put 3,000 on their wait list, according to one report in 2010.[3] Amherst takes 35 students from the 1,000 students on its wait list.[5] And as a general rule, most colleges and universities, with the exception of state schools which accept almost all applicants, will have some form of wait list. Of the students on a wait list, a fraction may be offered admission within the next few months before the start of school in September. One report said the fraction of wait-listed students who were eventually offered admission––as an average of all students wait listed in a given year––was 30%,[3] but this is an overall average, and the fraction of wait-listed applicants to prestigious universities, who are eventually admitted, is much less. Students who are wait-listed can take steps to improve their chances of admission by writing letters of interest, sending second-semester senior grades.[5]
| College | Yield (2009) | Yield (2010) | Wait list acceptances (2009) | Wait list acceptances (2010) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harvard | 75% | 76% | 70 | avg 65 & 75 est | |
| Dartmouth | 48% | 55% | 95 | 0 | |
| Stanford | 71% | 72% | 126 | 26 | [6] |
| U. Pennsylvania | 63% | 63% | |||
| SUNY New Paltz | 20% | 21% | |||
| Cornell | 49% | 49% | |||
| Amherst | 35 | [5] | |||
| Lafayette | 26% | 27% | |||
| U. North Carolina | 54% | 53% | Chapel Hill campus | ||
| U. Iowa | 33% | 34% | 0 | 0 | |
| Connecticut College | 29% | 31% | 44 | 0 | |
| Colorado College | 33% | 37% |