Should I send a follow-up email?

[thedeadsea]

About a month ago, I received word that I was on the wait list at my top choice school (a competitive, well-ranked education school). The next day I sent an email to the DGS to ask if the wait list was ranked and to express that I was still interested in joining the program if a position became available. She thanked me for expressing interest, informed me that their wait list is unranked, and said I should hear an official word from the school by May 1 (deadline for accepted students to respond is April 15th, I believe).

Now that it's been a little over four weeks, the deadline for accepted students is here and the school will (I assume) be contacting people on the wait list in the next week or so. I'm curious if I should send another email to the DGS to reaffirm my interest in the school or if such an email would be redundant at this point.

Any thoughts?

[Gneiss1]

I would probably wait to give them a chance to email/contact you since they are just getting responses in. Wait another week would be my suggestion.

[thedeadsea]

There's a part of me that was thinking the same thing, but I'm worried that if I wait a week, they may have already sent out acceptances to people on the waiting list and if I'm not one of them, it could be too late to let them know the program is my top choice. Maybe this stems from my confusion about the "unranked" waiting list - if it isn't ranked then that means they could potentially admit anyone from the list - there's no order or anything to dictate who's next in line. I guess I'm wondering if sending an email out sooner could potentially help me get off the waiting list.

[eponine10642]

I don't think it matters if you let them know that they're your top choice or not. Certainly didn't in my case. In the end, they'll just accept whoever they're most interested in.

Since it's "unranked" they're probably most interested in obtaining a diverse incoming class. I.e., don't want too many people from the same school/area or too many with very similar research experience, etc. All things which unfortunately are out of your control at this point.