{"id":253,"date":"2009-01-23T10:55:58","date_gmt":"2009-01-23T18:55:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/?p=253"},"modified":"2009-01-25T00:31:38","modified_gmt":"2009-01-25T08:31:38","slug":"what-you-don%e2%80%99t-need-to-know-on-a-waitlist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/what-you-don%e2%80%99t-need-to-know-on-a-waitlist\/","title":{"rendered":"What You Don\u2019t Need to Know on a Waitlist"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the Ross <\/a>waitlsit chat yesterday (transcript should be posted next week), there were the usual percentage of questions related to waitlist stats. Indeed, at this time of year every year, waitlist applicants obsess over previous years\u2019 acceptance rates at the schools waitlisting them. Nervous, tense applicants ask, \u201cHow many students at School X have been waitlisted and then accepted? Is there a difference if I\u2019m waitlisted earlier or later? Are the GPA and test scores different for waitlisted applicants?\u201d And every year the obsession mystifies me.<\/p>\n

For the life of me I can\u2019t see why those numbers are so <\/strong>important. Most schools accept some students from the waitlist. The accepted students are 100% in; the rejected students are 100% out. If your school last year accepted 5% or 15% or 25% of waitlisted applicants, is that number really going to change your behavior?<\/p>\n

If you need that data to determine whether you want to remain on the waitlist, it's useful, but realize that last year's numbers are not predictive. If the school has a higher yield than last year, the WL acceptance rate will plummet. If it has a lower yield than last year, the WL acceptance rate will climb. And if schools change the number of applicants they waitlist, last year's stats are truly meaningless.<\/p>\n

My sense is that schools are waitlisting more applicants this year because of<\/p>\n