Is anyone familiar with the waitlisted process?

[mranxious]

I'm apologize for my ignorance, but can folks talk about being waitlisted?

[ewurgler]

I'm apologize for my ignorance, but can folks talk about being waitlisted?

I'm on one waitlist, but I also know a bit about it at various schools.

Sometimes, they don't tell you your on the waitlist, they just don't give you a decision until way late.

Sometimes, they tell you, and basically, you wait until some accepted people decline, and then the department notifies you that you are in. Sometimes before april 15, sometimes after.

Basically, they don't want to give more offers than they can fund, so they accept a minimum, and then pull people off the waitlist as admits decline.

[mranxious]

thanks!

[Tritonetelephone]

Hypothetical situation: a department has 8 spots to fill. They accept 10 and waitlist 15. Since they don't expect everyone who was offered admission to accept but have no idea how many will, the waitlist is a pool of very strong applicants that they can pull from to make sure all 8 spots are filled.

April 15th is the legal deadline to let a school know if you are attending after being offered admission, and most people will wait until the last minute to give their decision. Once they know how many people have definitely refused admission, they will admit some off the waiting list if there are still spots left. You usually won't find out for sure if you're in or not until after April 15th.

Last year, I found out I was on the waiting list after emailing a school and asking if decisions had been made - it was nearly April. Some schools will contact you first and let you know. I then emailed the prof there that I liked and tried to (subtly!) fish for information about where I was on the list, how common it is to get off the list, etc. but they didn't know anything. In that case, the school ended up not being able to admit anyone off of the waitlist - they actually had every single person offered admission accept, which was VERY unusual and ended up being more than they could handle. Maybe their incoming cohort will have to be even smaller this year - yikes!

EDIT/ADD: I've also heard that some schools "rank" their waitlist so they know who to admit first, while others - and this makes the most sense to me - divide it up by specialty. So if you want to study political sociology, their political sociology admits have to decline before you're given an offer. They want a diverse cohort after all.