College admission decisions can take up to several months, leaving applicants to wonder whether they’ve been accepted, rejected or placed on a waitlist.
The results leave some applicants discouraged, especially those who were wait-listed at their top-choice college.
”If you’re on a waitlist, it’s a good sign,” says Kerr C. Ramsay III, senior vice president for enrollment at High Point University in North Carolina. “That’s the school saying that they feel you, in essence, are qualified to be admitted. If they didn’t feel that you could succeed at the institution, you would not have even been offered the waitlist opportunity.”
What Are College Waitlists?
Colleges have a limited number of seats each year, given physical space requirements or to maintain faculty-to-student ratios, so some promising applicants are put on a waitlist in case enrollment spots open up.
”It’s becoming harder for colleges to really know which students are serious about their institution and will enroll if offered an opportunity to,” Ramsay says. “So many schools use a waitlist as a way to help ensure that they meet their appropriate class size without overenrolling, and make sure that all programs have the appropriate number of students in them.”
Some applicants are offered spots on the waitlist during the regular decision round of admission. Wait-listed applicants generally won’t hear back about a decision on their admission until after the national May 1 deadline for high school seniors to submit their deposit and secure their spot at a college. Sometimes, they don’t find out until soon before the fall semester.
The admissions office’s final decision often comes down to whether there are openings for students left in the incoming class – that is, how many admitted students ended up deciding not to enroll.
“They’re eligible, they’re qualified, they could fit in the college community,” says Jeff Knox, founder of Moxie College Counseling. “But there are institutional goals from that college that’s just getting in that student’s way.”
Students and parents often think that “there’s just some extra glitter that they need to throw into the application, some new update – win the Nobel Peace Prize or whatever,” he adds. “But really it’s about waiting to see, does a space that’s your shape open up?”