stormbringer wrote:
wmcrockett wrote:
I know it's frustrating, but earlycareermba did an excellent analysis earlier in this thread of the waitlist stats, and based on last year's data we're in a pretty good position. The percentage of people waitlisted this year is lower (based on gmatclub stats), and about half of the people on the waitlist last year ended up getting admitted. The waiting game is awful, but at least we're in a much better position than people on the Harvard or Stanford waitlists.
You are right. Our chances might be good relative to other schools but I feel like Booth is being slimy and not honouring the concept of a waitlist. They're treating it like a deferred decision, which is totally different. Making up the rules as you go along is not cool, regardless of the outcome.
All school's waitlists in R1 are have a deferred decision component. When they make R1 waitlist decisions, they still have two unknowns:
1) How strong R2 will be (this might be diminished slightly by schools whose R1 decisions are released after the R2 deadline)
2) What the yield of accepted applicants will eventually be
#1 above refers to your idea of a decision deferral. They want to compare the R1 waitlist with R2 applications. #2 is a pure waitlist idea. Schools need to to plan for the two unknowns above, and the waitlist is how they do it. If you are waitlisted, then you are qualified. At the end of the day, schools need to see how many spots are available, and that isn't clear after R1. Given this, I don't believe Booth is behaving any differently than any other school.
In R2, the waitlist is less of #1 above (a decision deferral) and more of #2 (waiting to see who matriculates or not).
Waitlists aren't fun, but kudos to Booth for releasing some decisions early. I don't think the mid-decision date is necessarily an indication that Booth is abusing the waitlist, if there is such thing as abusing the waitlist. Schools don't want waitlists to be any larger than they have to be because they have to keep track of that many more potential applicants and process updates from a larger pool of people.
Best of luck to those on the waitlist!