What to Do if You’re Waitlisted: Advice From Experts
You’ve spent months visiting schools, interviewing, and submitting applications. After all that time and work, you’re left waiting for a response, hoping for an offer of admissions. Instead, you’ve been waitlisted. Now what?
We interviewed placement experts at top schools across the country to get their advice on what to do if you’re waitlisted.
1. Stay positive and focus on your original goal.
Although being waitlisted is not the decision you were hoping for, it is important to remember that it is a positive response. While you may not have been admitted initially, being waitlisted means that you have met all of the criteria necessary to become an admitted student. There are many reasons why you may have been waitlisted, such as diversity and gender requirements or financial aid limitations. No matter the reason, stay positive and remain patient—you are still being considered!
At the beginning of the admissions process, most families consider a variety of schools, hoping to find a school where their child can be happy and successful. Although a favorite school may have emerged over the past few months and a waitlist decision is disappointing, try keep the original goal in mind as you move forward.
2. Let the school know if you want to remain on the waitlist or not.
One of the most common pieces of advice we got from interviewing admissions experts was to communicate with the schools about your desire to remain on the waitlist.
If you are waitlisted at one of your top-choice schools, let them know that you would like to remain on the waitlist by writing an email or letter, or by making a phone call to the admission officer who interviewed you. Keep the tone of your communication optimistic and confident, and let them know that you intend to enroll if you were to get off the waitlist. This lets the school know that you are serious about attending and it helps move the admissions process forward.
If you are waitlisted at a school that you do not have intentions of attending, let the admissions office know as soon as possible to help prevent a logjam of students who are waiting on decisions.
Pro Tip: “If you get into another school and they need your enrollment decision while you are on the waitlist for another school, reach out to the admissions office—you can usually get a sense of any movement.”
— Doug Surgenor, Assistant Director of Enrollment Management at The Advent School
3. Offer to share new information if you think it will benefit your application.
Sometimes new information is made available after your application has been submitted. Perhaps you received a new report card or experienced a significant life event. If you think this new information could be beneficial to your application, you may consider reaching out to the school to see if they are interested in seeing the new information. A strong set of mid-year grades may be what’s needed to move you off of the waitlist. Before you send anything in, however, be sure to reach out to the school and confirm that they are willing to review any new information.
Pro Tip: Karen Miller, Director of Counseling and Family Services at The Shlenker School, explained that by the time applications are due, her students will have only had one report card, but by the time decisions are sent out, they will have another. She says that this is a great opportunity to reach out to the school to see if they are interested in reviewing your newest grades.
4. Consider your options.
Gaining admission off a waitlist is unpredictable. Once you have communicated your desire to remain on the waitlist, you should shift your focus to evaluating your other options.
Take advantage of admitted student revisit days at other schools that have admitted you. These events are often a far richer experience than the initial tour, with opportunities to attend classes, meet coaches, and mingle with current students. You may fall in love with a school that they weren’t that excited about the first time around. If you cannot attend a formal revisit day, you can always call the admission office and ask if you can join classes for a morning.
You can check out our full interviews with top placement experts here.
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Originally published on January 29, 2022. Updated on March 10, 2023.
