You spend months researching programs, mustering the courage for interviews, and exploring campuses. Stressing over topics and the accuracies of length and grammar, you generate applications and employ your best diplomacy to corral recommendations. At last, you embark on the final stage of enduring the weeks of anticipation leading up to March 10 decisions.
Then, alas, you are delivered news that is not final. Instead, you are waiting once again. Your worst fears of being denied admissions have not come true, but neither have the joy and affirmation of admittance to your most desired goal. The schools took their turns of examining and judging your candidacy. On March 10, it was supposed to become your turn to choose. Instead, you are thrown into another month of sleepless anticipation.
It is hard to remember that a waiting list decision began as an expression of qualification. They wanted you. They saw the match. They approved of your application. Then they ran out of space, or funding, or both. It is easy to dislike them just a little bit for that. Yet for some, this extra waiting will only make them crave admission more.
Be careful not what you wish for but, rather, how you wish. To begin, take a long moment to be nice to yourself. You pursued something strong and good in becoming an applicant, and you grew up in the process. Next, take the appropriate steps to register your interest in staying on the waiting list. Keep the school up to date on anything new. A month is a long period. Let them know you are still a fan now, and let hear your enthusiasm again as April 10 approaches. Waiting lists rarely resolve before April 10, and schools need to know who is genuinely interested if and when an opening appears.
Finally, galvanize your energies around plan B. Waiting list resolutions are fickle. There is no way for a school to predict before April who will take their offers. Do they have too few girls, boys, day students, boarders, 9th graders, 10th graders or first violinists? Don’t bury your good spirits and proactive energy. Instead, pour them into the reality of what you have in hand. Perhaps you have an offer from another school. Perhaps it is staying in your current school or system. If you are revisiting a second choice school, do so with full intent. Look for the features that attracted you in the first place. Seek out conversations. Enjoy the positive vibe. Imagine your own role in making this school the best that it can be not just for you but for others around you, too. You have the power of opportunity in your hand.
And what if the phone does ring with an offer? Be prepared. A school will likely give you only 24-48 hours to decide before they are compelled to move further along their waiting list. In that short time, either for your own reasons or theirs, you may not have a chance to return to campus for one more look. Your decision may be instantly joyful, or it may feel intensely pressured. As with considering school B, catalog what made this choice feel so desirable. Does it still stand up as your favorite?
If no happy news arrives, you will eventually hear (often around May 1) that the waiting list has been “dissolved.” Occasionally a school will let you string along in the hope that, over the summer, a new opening might emerge. Set these thoughts aside. Galvanize your planning around your current choice or situation, and let the positive energy of your focus rule the day.
Conversely, your phone rings in April with great news and, because you were not a “first-round admit,” you leap to wondering if you will feel like a second-class citizen as a newly enrolling student. Fear not, no peers will know you were admitted from the waiting list, and in another month or so, no admissions affiliate will remember.
Your initial placement on the waiting list came about because you were deemed a worthy match for the school. Hold this message close to your heart. It is important today as a reflection of your quality, your work, and your investment in the risk of presenting yourself. It is important forever as a reminder of the exceptional contributions you are ready to make to your world.