This 2003 Atlantic article is as timely now as it was 5 years ago, and it features some nice Eph quotes.

Getting into college has always been stressful. But this year the experience is likely to be different from that of only three or four years ago, and in many ways worse. This, at least, was the implication of an extensive series of interviews that Atlantic reporters conducted over the spring and summer with college admissions officers and high school guidance counselors from across the country.

I am vaguely suspicious of these the-sky-is-falling storylines. If things are much tougher in 2003 than they were in 1999 (or in 2008 than in 2003), we would expect to see significant increases in objective measures (like average SAT scores) at places like Williams. We don’t see major increases, so why believe the hype?

But many admissions deans use terms like “flood” and “torrent” to describe what is happening. Williams College received 5,341 applications last year, for a freshman class of 533; that was 410 more than the previous year.

The Admissions Office must look back upon 5,341 applications as an easy time. There were more than 7,200 applications last year. Morty and the Trustees are thinking of re-introducing Williams-specific essays to decrease the number of applications from students who really aren’t that interested in Williams.

Williams is more representative of elite schools. Last spring it sent acceptance letters to 936 students, on top of the 193 it had accepted under its binding early-decision plan, and it put 700 to 800 more on the waiting list.

Why so many? There are some incidental reasons. Waiting lists can be a way to soften the blow for the children of alumni or for members of other important constituencies, rather than rejecting them outright. At some schools the lists, strangely, have also become a repository for some of the most highly qualified applicants. These colleges know that they are being used as safety schools by students who really want to get into more prestigious and selective institutions. Some safety schools welcome the role, for the occasional extra-strong student it brings them. Many others resent being taken for granted—and react by putting “overqualified” applicants on the waiting list rather than, as they see it, “wasting an admit” on them.

But the main reason for long waiting lists is enrollment management. To return to Williams: about half of the people it placed on its waiting list in early April did not send back the required confirmation that they wanted to stay on the list. Either they had decided to accept a spot elsewhere or they had lost interest in Williams. By early May, as students sent in their enrollment deposits, Williams was beginning to get an idea of how many of those admitted—and which ones—would be attending, and therefore what holes in the class it still had to fill. The number it admits from the list varies, but last year it was thirty-seven. These were not necessarily the ones who’d originally come closest to admission but those whose traits and skills best balanced the class. This is the main reason for such long waiting lists—to have access to what the dean of another school calls “critical mass,” in a variety of categories, to add whatever element a class seems to lack.

More on the wait list process here and here.