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I have a waitlist at Columbia, Duke, UVA, and Penn. I am considering two lower ranked schools, only one of which requires me to withdrawl from all other schools. Should I worry about holding on to my waitlists when choosing the other school, or are the chances so remote that I should disregard the waitlists?

LSAT 167

GPA 3.96

legalease9 wrote:I have a waitlist at Columbia, Duke, UVA, and Penn. I am considering two lower ranked schools, only one of which requires me to withdrawl from all other schools. Should I worry about holding on to my waitlists when choosing the other school, or are the chances so remote that I should disregard the waitlists?

LSAT 167

GPA 3.96

Are you sure you have to withdraw from waitlists? I know some schools (like Chicago) say you have to withdraw all pending or admitted applications but you are allowed to stay on waitlists. Reread their policy to be sure. Otherwise, that is a tough choice. I think it depends on how invested you are in attending the better school, and how happy you are with your current options. I think in the best scenarios waitlist chances are remote, but obviously possible.

I think your GPA gives you a good chance of getting off of a waitlist. So the question is, how important is it to attend one of these schools?

legalease9 wrote:I have a waitlist at Columbia, Duke, UVA, and Penn. I am considering two lower ranked schools, only one of which requires me to withdrawl from all other schools. Should I worry about holding on to my waitlists when choosing the other school, or are the chances so remote that I should disregard the waitlists?

LSAT 167

GPA 3.96

Which school requires you to withdraw from all other schools? What is the language in their letter that says that? Is it language related to a scholarship acceptance?

It might just be that you have to withdraw (cannot commit / accept - send seat deposits - to more than one school). Unless the language in the letter about withdrawing is very clear and explicitly states that you have to withdraw from waitlists, I would not worry about it. Having said that, I don't think you can predict waitlists (esp. in this cycle where it seems that a ton of people applied to and got accepted to a boatload of schools but can only, ultimately, attend one). I mean most schools are saying that they had 10-50% increase in applications when there was only a 4% increase in the number of applicants. That means, IMHO, that a lot of people wanted to hedge their bets and apply to numerous schools to see about scholarships, have options, etc. This seems to imply that there will be active waitlist activity (from a pure statistical perspective).

If I were you, I would ride the waitlists at these T14 schools for as long as you feel comfortable doing so (esp. if there are some of these T14 schools that really strike your fancy), and I would commit to one of the lower ranked schools (but it might be safer to commit to the one that does not have the language saying you have to withdraw from all other schools, but if you like that school more - which has that language, then post the language or get other people's - friends, family - advice on what the language means).

IMHO, I don't think you need to worry about the waitlists because you have not actually been accepted (you are just still just waiting to hear from them, effectively), but it is better to be safe than sorry. You might also want to think about calling the school that has that language and ask them straight out...that way you know what you are dealing with. Just my 2 cents of free advice.

No, definitely don't withdraw from the waitlists. Any school that puts students on waitlists can't be sour when another school pulls one of their accepted students, because that's precisely what they'd be doing if they offered someone off their waitlist.

If it helps, I know someone that got in off the Penn wait list last cycle with comparable stats to yours, actually a little lower on both. I would stay on the wait lists because I think you have a very decent shot, and I'm 99.8% sure they are ranked.

otherside220 wrote:If it helps, I know someone that got in off the Penn wait list last cycle with comparable stats to yours, actually a little lower on both. I would stay on the wait lists because I think you have a very decent shot, and I'm 99.8% sure they are ranked.

I will never understand why schools won't just admit waitlist are ranked in some way. Why not let waitlist candidates evaluate their real chances? I know it depends on who withdraws, but there must be SOME order in which they go through the WL. It isn't like they look at every application each time a spot opens.

jks289 wrote:

otherside220 wrote:If it helps, I know someone that got in off the Penn wait list last cycle with comparable stats to yours, actually a little lower on both. I would stay on the wait lists because I think you have a very decent shot, and I'm 99.8% sure they are ranked.

I will never understand why schools won't just admit waitlist are ranked in some way. Why not let waitlist candidates evaluate their real chances? I know it depends on who withdraws, but there must be SOME order in which they go through the WL. It isn't like they look at every application each time a spot opens.

At least some schools maintain groups.

jks289 wrote:

otherside220 wrote:If it helps, I know someone that got in off the Penn wait list last cycle with comparable stats to yours, actually a little lower on both. I would stay on the wait lists because I think you have a very decent shot, and I'm 99.8% sure they are ranked.

I will never understand why schools won't just admit waitlist are ranked in some way. Why not let waitlist candidates evaluate their real chances? I know it depends on who withdraws, but there must be SOME order in which they go through the WL. It isn't like they look at every application each time a spot opens.

They definitely rank or group the WL in some fashion, but if they told us our ranking/relative chances there would be massive withdrawals from the WL. They like to keep the pool large just in case the ad comm did a crap job putting together a class.