jacketyellow wrote:A decision of hold is definitely better. A hold just says that the admissions committee really likes you and wants the chance to admit you; they just want to know a little more about you.
Wait list decisions are worse since the committee really doesn't want you but WILL accept you if forced to accept you if or when the deposits are not coming in like that should be.
Unfortunately, this is incorrect. Actually, hold means no decision. It means they haven't made a decision, not that they really do or don't like the applicant/want to or don't want to admit the applicant. They're still comparing him/her to the rest of the pool. Sure, they probably don't dislike said applicant; there's a reason they weren't outright rejected. But just because they don't dislike someone doesn't mean they automatically like someone; that's a definite LSAT reasoning error we're all aware of. What the NU Adcomm do state publicly is that hold means they're not sure. Otherwise, they would have admitted said applicant already. This is not only what adcomm states, but also what Johann directly states in interviews.
WL is not worst... The holds later accepted I personally knew of went from Hold -> WL -> Accept. They were accepted right before school started. I'm sure such cases probably do exist, but the majority of cases are not Hold -> Accept. They're Hold -> WL -> whatever they ultimately decide.
