Drilling wrote:
Hi All,
Any Anderson WL applicant here who was accepted later? I am WL'ed in R2 and also I have acceptance from Duke Fuqua. Both schools are great. I did my interview with Anderson online but with Duke I had a chance to visit the school.
Right now thinking whether to go after UCLA or not. My post-MBA goal is to go to clean energy and UCLA is great and is close to western cleantech companies. On the other hand Duke sends a lot to energy too.
Any thoughts much appreciated.
There were a couple of reported instances of R1 waitlist candidates being admitted in recent weeks, but literally only a couple. I didn't see a single one yesterday, or in the past week. For the most part, I think Anderson kept all of the R1 waitlist applicants on the waitlist through R2, and then added a whole slew of new R2 waitlist applicants yesterday. Again, we don't have any firm numbers to work with, but by all indications the Anderson waitlist has to be very lengthy right now.
Two more things to keep in mind here. First, Anderson has a larger and more competitive R3 than most programs. Whereas a lot of programs are effectively done for the year after R2, that's not quite as true at Anderson (R2 is their biggest round, but R3 is still decently sizable), so they still have more spots available at this point than most programs. Second, as above in my earlier post, Anderson is still viewed as a "safety" school by many of its applicants, and its yield is therefore relatively low. In real terms, that means a lot of their admits are ultimately going to tell them thanks but no thanks, which creates the possibility of space opening up for waitlisted applicants. All of that is to say that Anderson is likely going to tap into the waitlist a bit -- likely even more than most programs -- but due to them having a true R3 they probably won't do so until a good bit later this summer.
In practical terms, nothing is really going to change before the R2 admit deposit deadline, which is April 28. Once some of those R2 admits decline their Anderson offer, that may open up some space, though given the competitive R3, you're more realistically looking at late May or early June before you find out anything definitive either way (i.e. admit or ding). Worth noting that the R3 decision release date isn't until May 24, which is, I think, when most of the waitlist dings go out. There should be some waitlist offers going out during that general time frame, but still, the individual odds of any one waitlisted applicant ultimately getting admitted will have to be very low. Again, with its low yield I think Anderson has to maintain a large waitlist anyway, and anecdotally from what we've seen the past few days further supports the overall size of the waitlist. The odds just aren't good, I'm afraid.
As for you, that's a personal decision, obviously, but I'll throw in my two cents: Send in your tuition deposit to Fuqua and forget about Anderson. Fuqua is arguably a better program anyway, it's an incredibly portable degree, and even in the clean energy space it will probably open as many doors for you as Anderson will. You've obviously got nothing to lose by remaining on the Anderson waitlist, so do that in case that is where you really want to go, but I would absolutely be making plans to enroll at Fuqua and move to Durham later this summer. If Anderson does come along and give you good news then great, go for it if that's what you want and it makes financial sense, but it would be crazy to pass up a program like Fuqua just to see out a longshot on a waitlist that is unlikely to result in an offer of admission. Send in the tuition deposit to Fuqua. Again, just my two cents, and congrats on the admit!