10 Things Not To Do After Being Waitlisted

‘Tis the waitlist season. So what should you not do after being waitlisted? If you’re a student who was recently placed on a college’s waitlist (or the parent of a student placed in limbo), we bet you’d have checked off at least one of the below items. Don’t do it!

10. Don’t email an update to admissions that you’ve been named a National Merit Finalist. You’d be not so subtly conveying to admissions officers that you think they care about your PSAT score.

9. Don’t call the admissions office to find out why you didn’t get in outright. They don’t want to speak to you.

8. Don’t send off a short note to admissions thinking you’ll send a longer note later. You should be reaching out once and that one time needs to be powerful.

7. Don’t pitch a tent outside their office. They don’t want to see you. And, in the age of COVID-19, they’re unlikely in the office in the first place.

6. Don’t ask admissions if they’d be willing to interview you. They don’t want to interview you.

5. Don’t send them a cheesecake. Hello, COVID-19 protocols!

4. Don’t sit and wait to send a Letter of Enthusiasm to a school that has waitlisted you until after you’ve heard from the Ivy League schools on April 6th. They weren’t born yesterday. They’ll instinctually know you’re shopping for a better offer.

3. Don’t heed the advice of your school counselor who suggests you should only write a Letter of Enthusiasm to the school you most wish to attend. Every school that has waitlisted you that you’d prefer to attend over the school(s) at which you’ve earned admission should receive such a letter. Elite college admissions is a business. They’ve played games with you. It’s now your turn to fool each school into believing it’s your first choice.

2. Don’t update admissions officers on all the things you’ve achieved since you first applied. Yes, even if a school asks you for such updates, it’s an unlikely strategy to inspire an admissions officer to root for you. The Letters of Enthusiasm of Ivy Coach’s students are not filled with updates.

1. Don’t worry so much. In our experience, when students are placed on multiple waitlists, they often get off a couple of those lists if they play their cards right!

Interested in Ivy Coach’s assistance in crafting a powerful Letter of Enthusiasm? If so, fill out our free consultation form, indicate waitlist at the bottom, and we’ll soon be in touch to set up a free consultation designed to answer questions about our service. Many students work with us on a single Letter of Enthusiasm. Armed with their own unique approach to the letter, they then change all the specifics we include for all subsequent schools to which they’re waitlisted on their own (and, this time, they know what actually counts as a specific — and it’s not classes or professor name drops). In this way, they are literally firing on all cylinders through the waitlist process. When one school waitlists them, they send a letter. When the next school waitlists them, they send another letter. And the game goes on.