Elite Colleges Reach Deeper Into Wait Lists

Here's a bright spot in an otherwise brutal college-admissions season: More students are being accepted from wait lists at elite schools this year because colleges found it harder to predict how many graduating seniors would join the freshman class.

Boston College says it will admit about 250 students from its wait list, up from last year's 117. Harvard University says it will take at least 200 students, compared with 50 last year. Princeton University expects to take at least 90 students this year, up from 47. The University of Pennsylvania has admitted 90 students from the wait list this year, up from 65 last year. And Georgetown University is admitting 80, up from 29 last year.

Some state colleges and smaller liberal-arts schools are also drawing more from their wait lists. The University of Wisconsin-Madison expects to take 800 from the wait list this year, compared with six students last year. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is admitting 300 students from the wait list, up from 226 last year. Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., has so far taken 36 students off the wait list this year, up from 24 last year.

The wait-list bonanza isn't because colleges have more slots available for students -- in fact, overall enrollment levels at many schools remained the same as last year.

Instead, colleges this year faced more uncertainty in the applications process. For one thing, there's a growing population of high-school seniors -- many of whom submit applications to multiple schools. But for highly selective schools, what really affected the process was the move by two Ivy League schools to end their early-admissions programs. Also at play were policy changes that made more financial aid available to middle- and upper-class students.

"It was certainly a year in which there was more uncertainty than I've experienced in over 30 years in admissions," says Bill Fitzsimmons, Harvard's dean of admissions and financial aid.

Wait-list activity at one school can affect competitors, who may lose students as a result. But such moves also trickle down and open up spots for other hopeful students. "It's like a domino effect," says Marybeth Kravets, a counselor at Deerfield High School in Illinois.

Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., for instance, has lost four students because they were accepted from wait lists at Princeton, Harvard and Columbia universities. In turn, the school has taken 16 students from its own wait list.

College officials say they expect wait-list activity to be drawn out longer this year. So some students have already accepted one college's offer only to be accepted from the wait list of the college they prefer. If they switch to their preferred college, they automatically lose the enrollment deposit -- often amounting to hundreds of dollars -- they paid to the first school.

Holding Out

Alex Jefferson, 18, illustrates the uncertainty of the wait-list game. Mr. Jefferson, a senior at Bellaire High School in Houston, Texas, applied to 12 schools. He was accepted at eight and wait-listed at two: the University of Pennsylvania and Washington University in St. Louis. He was holding out for both but sent an enrollment deposit to Northwestern University expecting that he wouldn't get off either wait list.

To his surprise, he was accepted to both. He has decided to attend the University of Pennsylvania, but there's a catch: Mr. Jefferson has decided to defer for a year to go to Israel. Still, getting into a top choice this late in the year is thrilling. ...

•	Elite Colleges Reach Deeper Into Wait Lists The Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, May 21, 2008 Byline: Anjali Athavaley