How do waitlists work

See errors. There is a time conflict between the new class and one of your other classes. Important Reminders Waitlist position In general, your chances of getting into the class are higher if you are close to 1 on the waitlist.

Related Sections Related sections, such as discussion sections, can have a significant impact on your eligibility. Dropping from Waitlist If you are on the waitlist for a class you do not intend to enroll, it is your responsibility to drop your waitlisted class.

Multiple Waitlists for One Course Some courses have multiple classes in one semester, with each lecture having a different professor and running completely independently. Having an issue with CalCentral? Email SIS Help sishelp berkeley. More FAQs Add and drop.

Enrollment appointments and phases. Enrollment Errors Messages. How to enroll. Letters should be paragraphs and include an introduction, updates on accomplishments, a personal element, and a short conclusion. Applicants can use the introduction and conclusion to thank the college for their continued consideration and express their interest in attending the school.

Students should use the middle paragraphs to stand out from other candidates. Applicants should choose a few new accomplishments to highlight their continued growth and strength as a candidate. Students should humanize themselves and try to distinguish themselves from other applicants.

Though going on a college waitlist might feel painful, students should refrain from talking about negative emotions in their letters. Applicants should try to keep things positive. Candidates should also avoid rehashing information on their application. Only include new information in the letter, such as better grades, recent accolades, and higher standardized test scores. There are many online resources that can help you learn more about writing a letter of continued interest.

Additionally, below is an example of a letter of continued interest for waitlisted or deferred students. This example shows the general flow and tone applicants should use. Thank you for taking the time to review my application.

I know the university receives thousands of submissions and I am grateful for the continued opportunity to earn a place at your school. I would like to take this chance to update the admissions office on some of my recent accomplishments since applying.

I recently retook the SAT and earned a higher score in math. My reading score remains steady at , while my math score has increased to These scores better reflect my abilities in these subject areas and match more closely with the good grades I have consistently achieved throughout high school.

My passion for education and the university's excellent reputation for its education programs is what drew me to this school. I know that attending the university would help me achieve my goals of becoming an educator.

In the meantime, I'm getting some experience as a peer tutor in science. I've really loved the experience and hope to do more tutoring in the future! Thank you again for your time and consideration. Attending the university has always been my dream, and I hope that I will be among your incoming class next fall!

Every admission cycle looks different. Some years, a lot of applicants are accepted off the waitlist. Other years, none are. Even candidates who do everything right may not get accepted due to factors beyond their control. Students should not neglect other applications; instead, they should find several other universities that they would like to attend and devote equal time and attention applying to backup schools.

Though rejection can feel devastating, applicants should try to keep a positive outlook. Students who do not attend their first choice often end up loving their college experience at a different school.

During her 16 years in admissions, Carrie Thompson has seen the ebb and flow of higher education, starting as an assistant director and moving up to director. Her responsibilities include the planning, implementation, and evaluation of travel and recruitment; campus recruitment events; admissions communication flow; and oversight of the CRM system.

Carrie graduated from Clarion University with a bachelor of science in communication in and a master of science in communication with a public relations certificate in Students who get waitlisted or deferred from a college have options, so I always tell students not to get discouraged if they receive one of these letters. Deferred applications will occur at colleges that have an early admission deadline.

If you are applying to a college or university that uses rolling admissions, the waitlist often comes into play. Getting waitlisted or deferred doesn't mean that we are saying no to you.

Do not panic! In some instances, we may need additional information from you, like test scores, grades, an essay, or an interview. Start planning your new life at the college you have accepted and enjoy your senior year. If the college that waitlisted you gives you the nod, terrific! We try to make content available to you on CollegeData. The content may include articles, opinions and other information provided by third parties. If we can reasonably fact check articles provided by third parties and information used in those articles, we will.

However, opinions of third parties are their own, and no fact checking is possible. The content on CollegeData. We recommend that you refrain from acting or not acting on the basis of any content contained on CollegeData. We will not be liable for the content on CollegeData. Now What? Share: When your top-choice college puts you on a waitlist, it can feel like a denial.

Similarly, here's what NYU says about its waitlist candidates :. While during one recent year, we were not able to admit any students from the waitlist, in others we were able to admit hundreds of students.

And here's what the UC system says on the topic additional link ours :. There is no way to tell how many students, if any, will ultimately be offered admission for any particular year.

As you can see, in general, there's no easy way to determine your odds of getting admitted off a college waitlist. College waitlist acceptances can vary dramatically from year to year, mainly as a result of the changing number of qualified applicants and the school's needs.

Many top colleges and universities make their waitlisted applicant numbers publicly available. You can see the difference in the two admissions cycles, and In , many students decided to defer college for a year when colleges went remote due to the COVID pandemic.

As a result, colleges dug deep into their waitlists. In , the opposite happened. Application numbers shot up; also students who had been accepted but chose to defer for a year would also be joining the new freshman class.

Together, this meant very few students at top-tier colleges were taken off waitlists. At Harvard, not a single student was accepted from the waitlist. We already mentioned that the year you apply to college has a big effect on your chances of being waitlisted at schools you apply to. In fact, college waitlist numbers were even higher than usual this year. The COVID pandemic has made it really difficult for colleges and universities to predict how many students they need to admit in order to fill their freshman class.

The pandemic upended the normal application process and admissions patterns, leaving schools saddled with a lot of unknowns about the future—including how many students they should admit.

Because of this, many highly qualified applicants have been waitlisted this year. Doing this gives the school a large pool of excellent applicants to extend admissions offers to if previously accepted applicants opt to attend another school. The test optional policy has made these top schools even more attractive to college applicants. In fact, according to a recent New York Times article , Harvard University saw a 42 percent increase in applications and Colgate University experienced an percent increase in applications in All of these factors have resulted in top schools waitlisting many more students than in previous years.

If you've been waitlisted at a college, you'll need to take certain steps to ensure you're ultimately able to attend college without issue. Regardless of whether you choose to stay on the waitlist or not, here's exactly what you'll need to do if you're offered a waitlist spot.

Do you want to stay on the college waitlist in the hopes you'll get admitted, or would you rather decline the invitation and just go with a different college? After you've gotten a waitlist invitation, take time to consider whether you truly want to be on the waitlist for this school. Ask yourself the following questions:. Once you've made your decision about whether to stay on the college waitlist, it's time to move on to Step 2. If you've been offered a spot on the waitlist, know that you won't be automatically added to it— you need to officially accept the invitation in order to confirm your spot.

This usually needs to be done by a certain deadline, typically in mid-April or by May 1. Check with the school or look at your waitlist notification letter to figure out when the deadline is. If you fail to confirm your placement by this deadline, you will not be placed on the waitlist and will have indirectly declined your spot on it. If you've decided to not be put on the college waitlist and would rather decline your spot, be sure to notify the college of your decision by the deadline, ideally as soon as possible.

Regardless of whether you've decided to stay on the waitlist or not, you'll need to pick a college you've been admitted to that you want to attend, even if it's not your top choice and you're still hoping to get off the waitlist at the other school. Go through all the schools where you've been accepted not waitlisted and, for each, consider important factors, such as what kinds of majors it offers, what kinds of professors teach there, what extracurriculars are available, what its campus is like, where it's located, etc.

You can do research on the schools you're considering attending by looking at their official websites, visiting their campuses, and talking to current or former students. If you're struggling to make a decision on where you should go to college, check out our guide for tips on how to choose the best college for you. Once you've decided where you want to go to college—even if you're holding out hope that you'll get admitted off the waitlist at your top choice—it's time to accept your offer of admission and submit your non-refundable deposit.

Both your acceptance of admission and deposit must be submitted no later than the May 1 deadline. After you've decided on a college to attend, all that's left for you to do is wait to get your waitlist decision notification.