Mon 31 Mar 2008
Some of our readers will soon find themselves on the Williams wait list.
Like jittery investors scrambling to hedge their bets, selective colleges and universities are placing far more applicants than usual on their waiting lists this spring as a safeguard against an unusually murky admissions season. But while the policy gives colleges some peace of mind, it plunges students into an admissions purgatory that could string out the stressful selection process for weeks to come.
Colleges have typically been able to estimate the percentage of accepted students who will enroll in the fall with a fair degree of confidence. This year, several factors have conspired to thwart their projections: a shaky economy, record numbers of applications, and sweeping financial aid expansions that make it harder to predict what colleges middle-class families will choose.
Faced with so many variables, colleges are wait-listing more students to fine-tune the numbers and makeup of their incoming freshman class. Lengthening the waiting list creates a crucial buffer of students in a year of deep uncertainty about how many will eventually show up, college officials say.
…
“It’s always tricky to predict, but this is probably the trickiest year yet, because the landscape has shifted so radically,” said Dick Nesbitt, director of admissions at Williams College.
For colleges, “it’s like picking the brackets in college basketball,” Nesbitt said. “You might think you’re being scientific, but then you get blindsided.”
Williams, which received more than 7,500 applications for a class of 538, will accept about 100 more students than last year, but will not significantly increase its waiting list beyond last year’s 500 students, Nesbitt said.
Comments:
1) Newton North is the alma mater of Esther Mobley. Was that discussion only a year ago? Good times! Hope that Mobley likes Smith.
2) I think that, back in the day, the official story was that predicting acceptance levels was relatively easy. College officials had lots of experiences and things were mostly stable from year to year. I think that this was true then but that the world, as Nesbitt describes, is now a different place.
3) Five hundred seems like a huge number to me. Were the lists anywhere near that long five or ten years ago? There has been discussion in the past of ensuring that the College took enough students off the waitlist to ensure that people saw the list as “credible.”
4) I think that the ending of early admission at Harvard and Princeton is playing particular havoc with the Williams process. There are, literally, hundreds of students who, in past years, would have been accepted early by these schools and not bothered to apply to Williams who are now being considered by Nesbitt and Co. What are they to do? They would love for these students to come to Williams but don’t want to admit them all given the knowledge that they are very unlikely to accept. I suspect that this one of the reasons for the 100 extra acceptances. Williams would love to “steal” some of these students from Harvard/Princeton.
5) I heard a story last year that the valedictorian from Newton South was rejected by Williams while being accepted by Harvard. The implication was that Williams had rejected her, not because they did not want her but because they fully expected her to be accepted elsewhere and then to turn down Williams. I suspect that this is a real danger for Williams applicants with superb credentials who don’t give the College at least some hint that they really want to come. For example, if you live in Newton but never visit Williams, I’ll bet that your chances of getting in are much reduced.
6) The best way to think about this brave new world is that there are now three major waves of Williams admissions. First is early decision. If you really want to go to Williams and you are either poor or rich, then apply early. Your chances are, I think, much improved if you do (although there is some debate on this point). The only cost is less power in negotiating financial aid (but that only applies to “middle class” students) and the lost opportunity of applying elsewhere. Second is regular decision. The usual rules apply, but you are even more advised now than in the past to indicate to Williams that, if you are accepted, you will attend. How to do that is left as an reader exercise for the comment section. Third, and this is new, is the wait list. It seems that Williams and schools like it will be taking many more students off the wait list than they have in the past. I hope to do more reporting on this topic. Do we have any readers who came in off the wait list? Tell us about your experience.
March 31st, 2008 at 9:35 am
Just because somebody wrote an article suggesting that possibility doesn’t mean it’s true. This year is the peak of the echo-boom demographic buldge for college age students. I don’t see any particular reason to expect waitlist activity to be unusually high. If anything, the end of student loans should positively impact yield at places like Williams.
Everyone is citing the end of early action at Harvard, but the students accepted early action there in recent years were “oh my god, walk on water” applicants. This year, those applicants will be still be going to Harvard, not Williams and Amherst.
March 31st, 2008 at 10:02 am
re: point #5…
Williams wants the best students for Williams, period. Williams has enough of a draw, that they are more than happy directly competing with Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc, for students. Yes, these three schools win the cross-admit battle with Williams (along with Stanford, I believe they may be the only schools that do, at least by significant numbers), but Williams wins a significant number of cross admits nevertheless–certainly enough to merit Williams taking a chance.
There are so many other factors at play here that it is a far more likely explanation that the student in question simply was not a good fit at Williams…different admissions offices have tastes for different students. I’ve actually heard from a number of semi-reliable sources, that Williams’ favorite applicant is the super well rounded student, while Harvard’s favorite applicant is the genius in one area but possibly weak in others student. Given that in the grand scheme of things, both Williams and Harvard are unbelievably selective (and reject classes that are nearly as statistically impressive as the ones they accept), it is not surprising that there are some impressive-looking applicants rejected at Williams but accepted at Harvard. In fact, I would wager that the number of students rejected at Williams but accepted at Harvard over the past five years are almost equal in number to the students rejected by Harvard and accepted by Williams.
Other than a few anecdotes (that, as I discussed, should be expected), there is no evidence that Williams rejects highly-qualified applicants for yield purposes.
March 31st, 2008 at 10:38 am
As much speculation here as appears on the typical sports blog. As for me, I believe that Ditka would be admitted to both Williams and Harvard.
March 31st, 2008 at 11:04 am
Frank -
How do you think a draft system could work?
March 31st, 2008 at 2:16 pm
I came off the wait-list and I was not an athlete. End of story.
March 31st, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Wasn’t a varsity athlete and got in off the waitlist as well. Wrote an e-mail to the admissions officers and got the e-mail/phone call of acceptance the following day (Four years ago).
March 31st, 2008 at 11:18 pm
If you are on the waiting list anywhere and you want to attend that school, let the admission people know you really want to go there. Also, update your application to show any new accomplishments, improved grades or scores and so forth you’ve had since you applied. Write a strong formal letter on your own behalf. Speed matters, so email or fax it and put the original in the mail.
Good luck.