Wait For It …

Admit It!  This whole waitlist process feels, well, never-ending … for lack of a better word.  We hear ya.  We sometimes feel the same.  If there’s one thing we’re all certain about it’s that the waitlist is aptly named. There’s a lot of waiting involved on both your end and ours. Rest assured though we are working diligently to complete our class and to keep you all apprised of what’s going on. To that end, below is an update first for the freshmen class and secondly for the transfer class.

If there was a photo of waitlist in the dictionary would it look like this?

Freshmen: There are still spaces available and we are continuing to admit freshman applicants from the waitlist on a limited basis.  We continue to consider all students on the waitlist (both in and out-of-state students) for these openings.  We are still accepting any additional significant updates you wish to add to your application file.  Many of you have asked how many exact spaces remain available.  That number is ever-changing because we have people enrolling each day and sadly, people who withdraw every day (I know, we can’t believe they want to go somewhere other than William & Mary either, but as other schools activate their waitlists there’s a trickle-down effect to other schools).  So without being overly vague but lacking the ability to be truly specific, the number of remaining spots isn’t miniscule but it’s not overly large either. We are definitely admitting only a few students at a time, seeing how they respond and then moving forward from there. Our previous waitlist blog provides additional detail on how exactly students are admitted, how they are contacted, and what process they go through to enroll if you’re looking for that information.

Transfers: We are still in the process of evaluating our incoming transfer class (the deadline to deposit was just a few weeks ago) but we anticipate being able to activate the transfer waitlist on a fairly selective basis (meaning the number of spaces available isn’t so few as to not go to the waitlist but isn’t so large as to open the doors wide to all those on the waitlist).  All students on the waitlist need do is ensure that a final college transcript was sent to W&M (oftentimes with transfers on the waitlist we had a strong interest in seeing how you finished up).  Once the students to be admitted from the waitlist are selected, calls will be made (and emails sent as well should we not reach you by phone).  The process is basically identical to the freshman waitlist process: you’ll let us know if you remain interested in W&M, we’ll offer you admission and you’ll have two weeks from the date of admission to accept or decline our offer. Like the freshman waitlist, we will then need to see if the students taken off the waitlist accept our offer and if they don’t, we may be able to make additional offers so transfers get to play the waiting game as well.

So there you have it.  Nothing’s final yet, but we are definitely progressing towards our goal of completing the Class of 2016 and the incoming transfer cohort. Remember, all students on both waitlists will receive an email from W&M in mid-June with a general status update and which lays out your options moving forward through the rest of the summer.

So the wait continues…

Wendy Livingston ’03, M.Ed. ‘09
Senior Assistant Dean of Admission