美国国家公共电台 NPR College Waitlists Often Waste Would-Be Students' Time

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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

It's April, which means the college-bound students of the class of 2022 are hearing yes or no from the schools they've applied¹ to. Increasingly, though, they're getting a maybe. That's because more and more colleges are putting students on waitlist. But one college admissions adviser² says schools are overdoing³ it. Cristiana Quinn wrote an open letter criticizing the practice of putting large numbers of students on waitlist. I asked her why she sees that as a problem.

CRISTIANA QUINN: What we've seen in the college admissions counseling world is that over the last few years, the number of students that we've had waitlisted has increased, and the number of schools that they're waitlisted at has increased. So I've been doing this for about 10 years, and 10 years ago, it might be common for me to have three or four students on one, two, possibly three waiting lists. This year, all of my students who made regular admissions were waitlisted. And I've been getting a lot of calls on my phone lately from families where their students haven't been accepted anywhere. They're on five, six, eight waiting lists.

CORNISH: Talk about the colleges that you think are deploying⁴ this tactic⁵. And what is the motivation from a college admissions perspective?

QUINN: So for instance, if we look at numbers from last year because this year's numbers haven't published yet, Boston College last year waitlisted 5,689 students and took 112. U Michigan waitlisted over 11,000 students and took 36. Williams College waitlisted over 2,300 students and took 24. So we're looking at that from a perspective of larger private universities, public universities and small liberal arts colleges are really all doing this.

CORNISH: So you say they're overdoing it, but why shouldn't a college keep their options open, right? Students are doing the same.

QUINN: Well, if you look at it from a student perspective, many students when they get waitlisted think they're very close to getting in. And the reality is that many of these schools, they're accepting 1 percent, 2 percent, 3 percent off of the waiting list.

CORNISH: Does it make the school look better? Is it - like, what is the motivation there?

QUINN: There are several motivations. Traditionally, colleges have put students on the waiting list who were maybe somewhat qualified⁶ and perhaps their parents were legacy⁷. Or they had a VIP donor⁸ helping⁹ them in the admissions process, and they didn't want to ruffle¹⁰ feathers. Or perhaps the college wanted to keep a good relationship with that high school.

But now what we're hearing from colleges is that they want to have a very large pool to choose from so that, for instance, if they don't have a student from South Dakota, they can pull one from South Dakota. If they don't have a student who plays the oboe, they can pick an oboe player. But that really has students holding out hope because a lot of students don't see these numbers that are published in the common data set on waiting lists.

CORNISH: Can you talk about the financial implications of that?

QUINN: Unfortunately you will find that at many colleges, there is very little if any financial aid left by the time the colleges go to the waiting list. And that can be even at need-blind colleges and some of the wealthiest colleges in the country.

CORNISH: In the meantime, what are you telling your families, especially those maybe who find themselves on only waitlist?

QUINN: So for families where the student is only on waiting lists, there are colleges that have openings and have rolling admissions into the summertime. So there's still a chance to apply to colleges.

CORNISH: But do you tell them, look; this waitlist is a sham¹¹; you're not getting in any of these schools; we've got to come up with a new plan.

QUINN: No. I do have students write a letter of continued interest to the colleges where they're on the waiting list, and then I have them pursue colleges where they have rolling admissions or where there still may be openings.

CORNISH: That's Cristiana Quinn. She's a college admissions adviser in Rhode Island. Thank you for speaking with us.

QUINN: Thank you for having me.