How Exactly Do Programs Go About Filling Their Cohort Size?

[jlaser]

Do programs over admit by a few students knowing some will likely decline their offer? Or If they intend to only accept X amount of students - will they do so and then waitlist a handful of other candidates? 

What happens when they have less or more students than expected? 

(I'm in the Humanities, but answers from the social sciences and STEM are welcome  ) 

 

[YJSwan]

On 2/7/2020 at 5:37 AM, jlaser said:

Do programs over admit by a few students knowing some will likely decline their offer?

Some do, based on my experience.

A few years ago I got into a master's program. On the first day of every course, every professor told us about how our director and all professors were freaking out on April 15 because there were too many of us coming to class.

Our department has the admission data of the past years, and the admission to enrollment ratio fluctuates within a certain range. Each year, the department gives a prediction of this year's admission/enrollment ratio. Then, based on that prediction, the admission committee determines the number of admission, targeting at an expected number of enrollment. Our program doesn't seem to use a wait list system. Our director once mentioned how he thought a wait list was a torture to applicants. 

For reasons still unclear to this day, our year went rogue. More people decided to enroll than predicted. Huge salutes to our professors that decided not to undermine the quality of the program. They decided to take up much more work and teach each course twice a week, so that we had two sections with a single digit class size. 

(I was in Arts, not Humanities, but close? Closer than STEM? ?)

Of course, that was only my school. It is very possible that some schools use different strategies. 

[cl27]

I have heard that it depends on the size of the program. Large programs will over admit but smaller programs that can only afford to have a very specific number of students may offer admission to only the number of openings they have, then extend more invites as declined offers come back. You might not be officially waitlisted, but just not be accepted nor rejected and then hear from them sometime in March. Sometimes if a lot of shifting occurs late in the season and they have less than expected, people will get offers as late as April! Speaking from a STEM perspective but I'd imagine most programs work in similar ways.