Part of the Wait is Over
Admit It! The top question on most applicants’ minds post May 1 is whether or not schools will go to their waitlists. We are definitely fielding a lot of questions about our waitlist, that’s for sure. The purpose of this blog is to give those of you still active on the waitlist a general update about W&M’s waitlist and what happens from here.
So why is part of the wait over? Because we can answer the question on all of your minds, will W&M activate its waitlist. The answer is yes. We are able to admit a small number of additional students to the entering class. The follow-up question of course is how many? That question doesn’t have a definitive answer. There are so many factors that contribute to building and completing a class and the number of students enrolled in the Class of 2016 changes every day. Some days the number goes up (new deposits from admitted students who were given an extension on the May 1 deadline for example). Other days the number goes down (students may have been admitted off a different school’s waitlist and choose to withdraw their W&M enrollment). So there’s no fixed number. We can tell you that it’s not so small as to be insignificant (like last year when we admitted literally 10-15 students from the waitlist) but not so large as to be sending a thick envelope to most of the students on the waitlist.
Okay, so the big question answered. The next question most people have is how does this work? Completing the class cannot be completed in a day, not even in a week. It’s definitely an ongoing process. Late last week and early this week, the regional deans culled together the most competitive students from their individual regions (remember, our waitlist is not ranked). We then presented those candidates and the most competitive among them will be the first to be contacted. Contact is first attempted by phone (we will call both the student’s cell and the home phone if both numbers are provided). Voicemails are left if the calls are not answered. An email is also sent from the regional dean to the student’s application email address if no one was reached by phone so PLEASE CHECK YOUR VOICEMAIL AND EMAIL. We know that you prefer to communicate by text or social media but there’s something that just doesn’t seem right about texting you something like “You got off the waitlist. LOL. Emoticon,” you know what I’m saying? The purpose of this call/email is to see whether the student is still interested in W&M (as much as we like to think W&M is da bomb – and it is – and therefore irresistible – which it totally is, there are absolutely students who respond affirmatively to the waitlist in March who by May are no longer interested). Those who remain interested will be offered admission. They then have two weeks to accept or reject our offer. As we get positive and negative responses we keep a close eye on the size of the class. Should the class remain at a shortfall after these initial offers are made, we will start the process over again and continue until the class is filled. That is why some of the waiting is still ahead of you and ahead of us.
All students remaining on the waitlist will receive an email update from us by mid-June. Additionally, just as a PSA on our office’s behalf, if you responded affirmatively to the waitlist but you no longer remain interested, please email admission@wm.edu and ask to be withdrawn (I realize that the likelihood of disinterested students still reading this blog is unlikely but a girl can try). So yes, the wait is and isn’t over. Helpful and not helpful all at the same time right? We are taking steps to complete our class as efficiently as we can and with your help, we will do just that.
Wendy Livingston ’03, M.Ed. ‘09
Senior Assistant Dean of Admission
Comments are closed on posts older than one year, but we still want to hear from you. If you have a comment or question for us, please email admission@wm.edu.
Is there a time frame–at least an estimate–on when the calls will start being made to students?
@N, the calls have started and are ongoing. Once the committee makes a decision, the student is contacted as soon as possible.
Admit it-
I am confused. I understood that Affirmative Action played a role, but i was not aware that it played such a heavy role in selecting students for the class of 2016. I am completely for racial diversity. I don’t understand how you can flat out deny a student who applied early decision and was deferred to regular decision who had a higher GPA, Class Rank, SAT, ACT, and was more involved in Class Government, Extracurricular Activities, and Community volunteering based on skin color. I believe I deserve an explanation, seeing as William and Mary has been my first choice since I was in middle school, and this person that was accepted from my school did not even care until the last minute, when they were selected from the wait list. How can you waitlist someone solely based on their racial background when they do not have as many academic/extracurricular achievements?
@Frustrated, we appreaciate your disappointment and frustration at not being admitted to your first choice school. While W&M certainly takes diversity — in all of its forms — into account when making admission decisions, no one is ever awarded a particular decision based solely on the color of their skin. Take any race in our pool and you’ll find students of that race who were admitted, waitlisted and denied and that’s because there are other credentials we take into account.
Whether or not one student is more qualified than the other is very subjective but based on our review, we do determine that some students are. And yes, maybe part of their application wasn’t as strong as others but other parts of their application may have been incredibly strong. Additionally, context is very important and contextual clues may be easier for us to discern with the entire application in front of us than for those who don’t have the entire picture.
All of that being said, we know it doesn’t take away the sting and the anger you’re feeling right now and we are sorry for that.
I really just don’t understand other than:
SAT
ACT
GPA
Class Rank
Extra curricular activities
Sports
SGA
where else could I have done better?
My essays were decent, but I wasn’t aware that writing essays or something else on an application can outshine all the other things.
@Frustrated, we’re not saying you did anything wrong or that you’re not an accomplished student. What we can say is that a lower GPA/SAT may be explained by factors of which you’re unaware (although the applicant may explain them to us). Or differences therein may be fairly minimal (to us there isn’t much difference between say a 3.9 and a 3.8 just to use a random example). You may feel your extracurricular activities are better than someone else’s but evaluating such things is subjective and we may have felt this other person’s were stronger than you feel they are. There may also have been information in the other student’s application of which you’re unaware but that impacted the decision we made. We also consider background, perspective, life experience, special talents, family connections to W&M, essays and any other information an applicant chooses to share.
We get that the decisions we make may not seem fair to individual students and all we can tell you is that we have the benefit of seeing our entire applicant pool whereas students and families are privy to a very small part of it. We also can only guarantee that our process is fair (in that every applicant receives the same treatment/review). We take the factors you mentioned and the ones we mentioned and try our best to determine who has the most to add to our campus, who is the best fit of our campus and whom we can do the most for as a campus and those are the students we admit. It’s absolutely possible that we get it wrong sometimes and miss out on really great students such as yourself and that’s not a part of our job we relish in but it is part of our work.
We have no doubt that you were admitted to other wonderful colleges/universities and that you will have an amazing experience at whichever one you chose and we wish you all the best.
Will let us know when you’ve finished making the first round of calls?
Oops… I meant, will you* let us know?
@Anonymous, there’s no “first round of calls”. Calls are truly ongoing. We evaluate the status of our incoming class every day as we get responses from those we’ve contacted and continue to make calls as necessary.
Still crossing my fingers….so want a phone call!
@ Frustrated. I am right there with you. The same thing happened to me!!! Why does it matter what race a person is?!? We are all human beings. How is it fair to judge a student on something that is completely beyond his or her control and doesn’t affect the way in which he or she learns?!
@Bitter, we would argue that diversity affects the way everyone learns. Diversity provides perspective, culture, challenge. Would you want to go to a school where everyone looked liked you, thought like you, had the same experiences you do? That doesn’t help anyone grow.
Additionally, we consider all kinds of factors that students have no control over. We consider intelligence, athletic ability, artistic talent, legacy status. While some of those can be nurtured and worked on, they are also innate abilities that some students may not have no matter how hard they work (i.e. some people will never run fast, jump high, throw long).
Our job is to build a dynamic, diverse, talented, intellectual, creative, interesting class and to do that we have to admit a swath of different types of individuals. We continue to understand that the sting of not being admitted is tough and frustrating and saddening and we understand that and do not enjoy rejecting strong students but we do believe in the class that we build and the students who comprise it.
Do W&M admissions officers make the admit calls to waitlisters
on evenings and weekends, as well as during business hours mon thru fri?
@grandmom2012, we make calls during business hours only but when trying to reach a student we call all numbers provided (cell and home) and we also email the student if we don’t reach anyone by phone.
So, I just want to make sure I am understanding this correctly: once contacted with an offer of admission, waitlisters have two weeks to decide whether or not to accept it?
@Hopeful, that’s correct. However, those who accept an offer of admission should be seriously considering W&M and of course can make that decision sooner if they choose.
Admissions,
I know last year there was a welcome day for transfers in June. Will there be one this year as well? If so, do you know what the date for it is? I live fairly far from VA and am just trying to figure out logistics.
Thanks!
@Lauren, it’s scheduled for Friday, June 22. More information can likely be provided by the Dean of Students Office who coordinates that day.
Will those who get reject receive a phone call/email? Or will they have to wait until mid-june?
@Michael, no one is ever rejected from the waitlist. It’s simply that only a small percentage is admitted. Everyone who has not been admitted from the waitlist will get an email update in mid-June about the status of the waitlist.
Is it too late to submit updated info to be considered as part of the “wait list” process? Thank you.
@Barbara, you can still update your file with pertinent new information if you wish.
Dear W&M Admission:
What would you consider to be “pertinent new information” that would benefit our applications?
@Scott, what we generally recommend regardless of whether it’s an original application or an application update is that it be a significant achievement. For example, winning a race in a track meet isn’t going to make or break your application but being named all-state in track is a high-level achievement. Being named a student of the month won’t distinguish your application but being named a National Merit Finalist could. Hope that clarifies things.
Is the college deciding decisions for those students who are transfers and waitlisted?
@Lindsey, not quite yet. The transfer deposit deadline was May 15, just a few days ago so we’ll need some time to assess where we are with our transfers.
Will you let the waitlisted students know if certain spots–in-state or out-of-state–are filled?
(Looks like my previous comment got overwritten)
@N, that’s never something we really “know” because our incoming class numbers are always a moving target. Today we might feel good about our class. Then tomorrow, a school will activate its waitlist and we’ll lose some students thus causing us to admit more students. What we do know is that when we initially activated the waitlist in early May, there were spaces for both in and out-of-state students. In mid-June, all students remaining on the waitlist will receive an email update with more info.
As I am reading through the responses on this blog, I am concerned that I should have done something other than simply accept my position on the wait list. Am I at a disadvantage now because I did not send additional letters, etc to the admissions committee? I am out of state and still crossing my fingers for that phone call….
@KHollister, there’s no expectation that someone on the wait list do more than accept their position as you did but if it will ease your mind to send a statement of continued interest you are welcome to email it to your regional dean.
Any word on transfer students and the wait list process?
@Michelle, we hope to have a blog that updates everyone on both the freshman and transfer waitlist next week.
How many spots are still open on the waitlist?