Harvard Waitlist 2017 - WITH SPREADSHEET! Forum

[teampeeta]

Well, my friend who works in admissions at a T14 (not HLS), told me that Harvard miscalculated their yield last year. They thought they'd retain more admits than they actually did which meant that they had to go deep into their wait list to fill the class.

Here's hoping, for your guys' sake, that JS makes a similar mistake this year!

[drawstring]

[Trig]

I am looking for need based aid. I didn't put H down on my fafsa list cuz I'm not accepted. Should I have?

+1

[theonerd]

I am looking for need based aid. I didn't put H down on my fafsa list cuz I'm not accepted. Should I have?

Yes, you should add their school code to your FAFSA now. I can't think of any advantage to waiting to do so. Be sure to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool for your tax info if you have not already done so (assuming you are able to use it).

[lawschool22]

Well, my friend who works in admissions at a T14 (not HLS), told me that Harvard miscalculated their yield last year. They thought they'd retain more admits than they actually did which meant that they had to go deep into their wait list to fill the class.

Here's hoping, for your guys' sake, that JS makes a similar mistake this year!

Hopefully they didn't over-correct this year and over-admit

[drawstring]

I seriously hope not!

[milkandcheerios]

Well, my friend who works in admissions at a T14 (not HLS), told me that Harvard miscalculated their yield last year. They thought they'd retain more admits than they actually did which meant that they had to go deep into their wait list to fill the class.

Here's hoping, for your guys' sake, that JS makes a similar mistake this year!

I wonder if that's why they started giving JS1s off the wait list so early last year. I hope it's not a bad sign that they're not doing the same thing this year.

[muzzy]

.

[drawstring]

Well, if there are fewer WL offers going out this year at least the pool they choose from is smaller. Still not good to hear that though.

[manu6926]

...

[drawstring]

Schools always initially admit more students than there are spots to account for some of them leaving. I'd be shocked if there was no WL movement.

Keep in mind, about 300 people turn down Harvard for other options.

[manu6926]

...

[drawstring]

I think a lot of them will choose other schools, as most of the people who get Yale, Stanford, Rubies, Hamiltons, etc. will have probably been accepted to Harvard. I imagine that most people who will go elsewhere haven't withdrawn yet either.

Last cycle Harvard made about 850 offers IIRC.

[manu6926]

...

[drawstring]

And for what it's worth, assuming they are a week ahead this year, which seems likely given that the WLs came out a week earlier and other trends seem to indicate that is the case, there aren't that many more offers this cycle than last. I think its like 153 this cycle to 147 last cycle.

So they may have admitted more people this year due to the alleged under-admitting last year, but 1) it doesn't seem like they've overcompensated and 2) this cycle's waitlist is noticeably smaller, meaning less competition.

eta: 65 on this year's spreadsheet vs. 117 last year

[gottago]

edit

[drawstring]

So assuming 75 percent join the FB group, there would be about 150 (mostly WL?) offers left to make if there are 850 total again.

[tlsapp2017]

I have a sad news folks.
Harvard Law School class of 2017 Facebook group now has 529 members while HLS's entering class size is approx 560.
If we assume that few more will be admitted in the next few days and that some admitted/committed-to-HLS people do not use facebook actively, then the whole class will be filled and there won't be any slot left for us.
I think this year JS paid particular attention to yield given that there was an error last year, and this resulted in the class being filled without any WL-accepted.

I think you're draw waaaaay too many conclusions from the size of the FB group. Also, I'm sure a large # of the people that are currently in the group won't end up going to Harvard - I personally know 2 people who are listed on the FB group for Harvard but have already committed to Yale.

[gottago]

edit

[drawstring]

None of that is inconsistent with what I said, though I'm not so sure that there will be over 50 more straight admits before it's just WL activity.

Last year seemed to be more an issue of under-offering than over-offering, at least initially. I'd suspect that people who get Harvard on the WL are more likely to matriculate than straight admits (and thus less likely to require replacements that Harvard gets by making additional offers) though that's mainly speculation.

[drawstring]

Also, it seems like this time last year there was about 490 people in the FB group, vs. 529 this year.

[Mr. Teal]

So assuming 75 percent join the FB group, there would be about 150 (mostly WL?) offers left to make if there are 850 total again.

When there are JS2 waves, there are typically more than just 5 or so on TLS, and if TLS represents 10-15% of the total applicant pool, the next JS2 wave before they move to the WL will have at least 50 JS2s (no idea how they call that many people).

Also no idea of what happened last year but apparently that's not a good guide because last year was a mishandling of yield.

+1

[muzzy]

.

[OVOXO]

Weren’t post-WL JS1s sent out this week last year? April 9th was the first I blv

[drawstring]

Ya they were.

Apparently admissions planned to WL fewer people this cycle, which seems supported by comparison of the spreadsheets, so maybe they don't have to start as early. Based on the spreadsheet there is also a much greater proportion of WL'd applicants who already interviewed vs. last cycle.