With the number of national college applications at an all-time high, schools across the country-including Washington University-are using waiting lists more than ever to prevent incoming classes from growing too large.
Though administrators planned to use the wait list for that purpose, its role was compounded by the fact that the most selective colleges and universities also admitted significant numbers of students from their waiting lists.
At Harvard, for example, the Harvard Crimson reported that more than 200 students were admitted from the wait list; according to The New York Times, both Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania expect to take approximately 90 students off the wait list.
The wait list admissions at the most competitive schools like Harvard and Princeton have trickled down to other institutions as students have backed away from acceptances at those other schools late in the admissions season.
Furthermore, the University and its peer institutions “made fewer offers of admission up-front, and used the wait list to balance their enrollment to the right size,” wrote Nanette Tarbouni, director of admissions at Washington University, in an e-mail.
Tarbouni added that by relying more on the wait list, schools have much finer control over the number of students that will make up the incoming class.
“Since our freshman enrollment can vary a bit, and because it’s impossible to have a freshman class be exactly a certain size-we employ the use of the wait list,” Tarbouni wrote.
Even though many students were prepared for the prospect of being placed on the wait list, the experience challenged them.
“Our college counselors had already told us to expect being put on the wait list,” Linda Donaldson, an incoming freshman from Glendale, Calif. who was admitted to the University from the wait list, said. “It’s a little difficult because you don’t know whether to start getting excited for one school or whether to wait to hear back,” she said.
Though being placed on a wait list draws out the stress of applying to colleges, it is a tool that-when it works out-is beneficial for students.
“I enrolled at the University of Michigan and I wasn’t completely happy about going there,” incoming freshman James Ross said. “It was definitely worth the wait.”
Tarbouni also sees the wait list’s positive side.
“We love using the wait list-it allows us to make a few more students happy and we love to admit students,” Tarbouni wrote.
The increased prominence of the wait list comes as the University looks to contain the class size around an estimate of approximately 1,350 students. In 2007, the Chancellor announced plans to reduce the student body to a target of 5,800 undergraduates over five years.
Three years ago the University admitted 1470 students who accepted admission to the class of 2010-more than 100 students larger than expected-causing a housing crunch and a situation that the University has since hoped to avoid.
The final size for the class of 2012 is not yet known, though it is expected to be between 1380 and 1400 students; the exact number of students admitted from the wait list is also unknown.
According to Special Assistant to the Chancellor Rob Wild the University is still working to meet the goal of reducing the overall student body, though each individual class will vary.
“Washington University does not have plans to grow significantly the size of its undergraduate class, but each year there will be fluctuations in the number of first year students who choose to come to Washington University,” Wild wrote in an e-mail to Student Life. “As with most universities, it is hard to predict the exact final number.”