Freshman Waitlist Update
We Admit It! The waitlist process is somewhat of a tricky one. It’s a process with no absolutes, no set timeline, no predictability. As it plays out, it often feels like we’re taking two steps forward and one step backwards. It probably feels similarly for those students on the waitlist. With that all being said, here’s what we can tell you now that we’ve had a chance, post-May 1, to assess our incoming class.
- We will be going to the waitlist for a small, select group of students. There’s no set number at this point because the class is ever evolving. Just as we admit some students from the waitlist, others who have already accepted our offer may withdraw as other schools activate their waitlist (remember, two steps forward, one step back). But we do believe, based on present data, that the number admitted from the waitlist will be relatively limited.
- The Committee convened this week to select the initial group to which we will make offers
Once we decide who we wish to admit from the waitlist, we begin the process of contacting those students via the steps outlined below.
- We will attempt to reach you by phone first. We will call any number listed on your Common Application. If no one answers, we will leave a message. If we cannot reach you by phone, we will send an email. If our messages go unanswered for a week, we will withdraw your application.
- We will begin by determining if you remain interested in W&M (we recognize that many who initially respond to our waitlist offer in March no longer remain interested come May).
- If you are interested in W&M, we will make you an offer of admission. Once that happens, we ask that you submit your deposit AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. This allows us to keep our process moving efficiently. At most, students have two weeks to respond but we ask that you respond sooner if at all possible.
- Students admitted from the waitlist have not missed any opportunity provided to incoming students. We work closely with our Orientation/First Year Experience team to ensure that they are in the loop so they can work with any newly admitted students in terms of completing forms. Roommates and residence halls aren’t assigned until July so no waitlisted students are left out and Orientation isn’t until August.
Then we wait. We wait for those to whom we make an offer to respond. We wait to see how movement on other schools’ waitlists impacts our class. As that process plays out, we might reconvene the committee and make additional offers and start the entire process over again.
By June 15 at the latest, we will send an email update to all students remaining on the waitlist.
We will use this blog to provide any further updates as this process plays out over the course of the next month or so.
Wendy Livingston ’03, M.Ed. ‘09
Associate 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.
When will you begin to contact students, or has that process already started?
@AluMom, that process is underway.
Will financial aid packages be available for students admitted off the wait list? If so, will the students be informed of the package before having to make a decision?
@Tandy S, financial aid is unfortunately often limited for those admitted off the waitlist but some aid may be available and students can see that information before making a final decision.
I received an email asking me if I’m still interested, and I’m really excited! I don’t know if this means I’m in or not though but one can hope! I was wondering if there’s any way I can reply Saturday tomorrow seeing as your offices will be closed? I sent an email and left a message already but I don’t want to miss this opportunity and frankly can’t wait till Monday!
Will you update when the initial wave of contacts has been made or should we keep staring at our phones waiting for them to ring? 🙂
@Anon, as we said, our initial reach asks if you’re still interested. If you reply positively, the dean who reached out to you will follow up on Monday and take it from there. They’ll answer any questions you have and discuss the good news that’s coming!
@AluMom, the initial wave will take place over a few days to a week. But based on the responses we get, there could be a full-fledged second wave or just some additional outreach on a smaller basis. There’s no way to really predict. But if there’s significant news to report, we will report it in the blog.
I love you guys <3
Ooh, exciting times! Any word if you’ll be using the wait list for the St Andrews programme?
@Anon, we will continue to monitor but at this point our St Andrews class is full so we do not anticipate admitting additional students into that program.
Does the inquiry about interest go to all students you wish to admit? For example, if we have sent in a letter of continued interest, will we still be receiving that email?
@Awaiting, yes, the inquiry about interest is made of any student the Committee is interested in admitting regardless of previous communication from the applicant.
Have the emails already been sent to all wait list candidates
you are interested in admitting or is that happening this week?
@W&M Hopeful, that process is in progress. And generally we try to reach out by phone first; we email only if we can’t reach anyone by phone.
Are parents the ones who are called during the day, or are students called after school hours?
@Awaiting, we call whatever numbers are listed on the student’s application (usually only a cell and maybe a home number). We try the student’s cell first if provided. We try to call after school and will call any number listed if we don’t reach the student initially on their cell.
If our child was sent an email on Thursday should they be expecting another email to be sent today? Or has that been pushed back at all? Thank you!
@Excited parent, what email did your student get Thursday? Assuming it was the initial “are you still interested in W&M” email, they won’t hear anything further from us until they respond to that initial inquiry.
If I did not receive an,”Are you still interested” email last week does that mean I am not being considered for acceptance off the wait list? Would I still get this email even if I sent a letter of continued interest? Thank you!
I got the “are you still interested” email last week and replied with a definite “yes!” to the Dean who sent me it. I was wondering when I will get the admitted letter or email and how I can submit my deposit now?
@Anxious, we constantly monitor the waitlist and may decide to make more rounds of offers at any given point. Our first round of reaching out to applicants is in progress but that doesn’t mean our waitlist action is over.
@Anon, if you replied to the dean who reached out to you, he/she will respond to your response with all those details. You cannot submit a deposit until you receive an official admission offer via email.
How can I be sure my letter of continued interest was received? Also, is the first round of admission offers complete? What is the latest time one will be contacted about an admission offer? Thank you so much!
@Anon, if you sent us a letter you can feel confident it was added to your file. As we said in this blog and previous comments, we are in the process of contacting an initial group of students. There’s no latest date as the process is an ongoing one we monitor throughout the summer but all students on the waitlist will get an update from us by mid-June.
Thanks you for the information on the blog. I am just trying to get more clarification. If I did not receive an email last week or a phone call already does that mean I am not in the initial offering of acceptance? I understand from the other posts that it is an ongoing process but at this point I just want information about the first round? Thank you for all the information.
@Anxious, it takes us a few days to make contact with those the Committee hopes to admit. Most of our initial outreach is complete but some is still in the works and as we monitor things, we could decide to make additional offers at any point if needed.
What is the general range of students you are seeking to offer admission to from the waitlist? Also, approximately how many students have you offered admission off the waitlist so far? Thanks!
@Awaiting, we’re not sure what you mean by “general range” but we try to take the most competitive students on the waitlist generally speaking. As we said in the blog there’s no set number because our class’ status is ever-changing but as we said in the blog it’s a relatively small, select group that we plan to take and to whom we’ve reached out thus far.
If I have not heard anything so far, is it safe to assume I am not part of the initial waitlist offers?
@Awaiting, if you haven’t heard from us by week’s end that’s probably safe to assume but we could decide to make additional offers at any given point or we could decide that our class looks good so this process gets quite complex and muddled at times. We don’t want to peddle false hope but we don’t want interested students to give up just because they haven’t heard from us yet. Like you, we are waiting to see where all the chips fall.
wow, didnt realize it was that unpredictable. Thank you for providing updates and i will keep my fingers crossed!
@Anxious, as we explained, it unfortunately it. There are a lot of unknowns. Will the students we offer to accept our offer? Will students who already committed to W&M get off other waitlists making more spaces available? No way to predict the answer to any of the above.
Will there be any more offers made to students on the waiting list for the class of 2018
this week? Thank you!
@Mary, see our response to another similar comment posted yesterday evening. There’s really no way to predict what we’ll do this week or next week. We literally monitor the class every day and make decisions accordingly.
Any estimate on how many people are on the waitlist this year?
@Curious, we’d estimate 1200 students accept our waitlist offer.
Are any other offers going to be made for the class of 2018?
@Curious, that is yet to be determined. We hope to have another update maybe next week.
I know that the waitlist is somewhat unpredictable, but are there expected to be anymore acceptances from the waitlist or is the Class of 2018 now complete?
@Still Hopeful, we hope to have an update on the freshman waitlist late this week or early next week.
When and where will you publish the final numbers for the wait list? I have four other kids in the pipeline and this will certainly help their understanding should they end up on the wait list as well (and I do know it differs year to year).
Lastly, great job on the blog. It is excellent and reflective of the quality of W&M.
@perhaps next time, thanks for the positive feedback. It’s appreciated. Can you elaborate on what you mean by final waitlist numbers? We just put up a new post with a general update but there are no stats in it.
in content I saw earlier on the blog or perhaps an FAQ there was information about how many wait listed students were accepted for what I recall as being four previous years.
My daughter is a rising senior in HS and uses her older brother as a gauge of her prospects. The numbers help to put things in context.
@perhaps next time, we won’t have that kind of final number ’til later this summer so feel free to ask us again in August. We anticipate this number being smaller than last year. As you mentioned, it definitely varies (and sometimes greatly from year to year) so we caution any prospective student about using this year’s stats as a guideline.