Unofficial Waitlists

[royo0210]

While I have written off the rest of the schools I have not heard from as implicit rejections, it occurred to me today that there are still seven schools from which I have not officially heard. Seven! That's a lot. Half of the schools I applied to. All of these schools have sent out acceptances, however, and some have even sent out some rejections (which I very likely could receive soon). I think a lot of us are in this strange boat, it seems. Do we think a lot of schools have "unofficial waitlists" and they wait to reject the rest of applicants until they've heard back from the first batch that they accepted? That seems like the only reasonable/humane explanation for waiting so long to send out rejections. I am more curious than anything else. What does everyone think?

[anxious_aspirant]

I, too, am waiting to hear from one school, and I've written it off as a rejection considering the radio silence and that there have been acceptances posted. I can't say that I know much about unofficial wait lists from the administrative side of things, though I echo your question. Isn't this what some people were saying UConn is doing? From my look through past boards, the school I'm waiting on has acceptances/rejections posted from mid-February through late March - quite a range.

[anthropologygeek]

My current school has an unofficial wait list however they keep all the apps for rejection until things are official then they send out all rejections at once in April

[Stately Plump]

I think it's possible that some schools have "unofficial" wait-lists.

What I don't understand is why the wait-list has to be "unofficial." Why can't they just tell me I'm on the wait-list (if that's the case) and then reject me from the wait-list when the time comes?

Arrrrgghhh (<--- insanity laugh)

[ComeBackZinc]

My own program is exactly this way. From their perspective, it's pretty simple: they have seven areas of specialization that choose their own cohorts: literature, rhetoric and composition, ESL, linguistics, theory and cultural studies, English education, and creative writing. That's not even including Philosophy and Literature. Each is largely on their own timetable. Trying to coordinate all six, and trying to come up with a unified ranked wait list, would be like herding cats. Informing students as they choose, in a kind of quasi-rolling process, is far easier, and potentially easier on students. (Although not obsessives like us who monitor this message board!)