If you’re reading this, odds are your child was waitlisted at Occidental College. You might be pulling your hair, pacing around your house, reaching for the Merlot. First of all: take a deep breath and put down the corkscrew. Though being waitlisted isn’t the news you and your child had hoped for, it’s still a heck of a lot better than being dealt a flat-out rejection. 

For you, the door has been at least been left ajar. If you handle the knob with just the right delicate touch, your child will be stepping through the door and into Oxy’s Los Angeles campus this fall. 

Let’s look at Occidental College’s waitlist admissions statistics from the last four years. The data in the table below is gathered directly from Occidental College’s self-reporting to The Common Data Set. The Common Data Set Initiative is a voluntary effort among colleges to help all of those involved with a student’s transition into higher education. 

Occidental College Waitlist Acceptance Rate (Classes of 2030 – 2026)

Occidental College Class Year	Number of Students Waitlisted to Occidental College	Number of Students Who Chose to Join Occidental College Waitlist	Number of Students Accepted Off Occidental College Waitlist	Occidental College Waitlist Acceptance Rate
Occidental College Class of 2030	Not Yet Reported	Not Yet Reported	TBD	TBD
Occidental College Class of 2029	1,238	437	71	16.2%
Occidental College Class of 2028	1,534	841	60	7.13%
Occidental College Class of 2027	1,470	639	11	1.7%
Occidental College Class of 2026	1,569	747	69	9.23%

Projections on Occidental’s Waitlist Activity for the Class of 2030

These numbers have probably left you with more questions than answers. That’s part of the process. Let’s explain the mechanics behind how these numbers came to be. 

Your most pressing question probably is: Why is there so much variance among these waitlist acceptance rates? 16.2% one year and 1.7% just two years before that?! What in tarnation? The answers to these questions lie in Occidental’s yield, or the percentage of admitted students who choose to enroll. The higher a school’s yield, the lower its waitlist acceptance rate. So, for the Oxy Class of 2029, where we see that really high waitlist acceptance rate of 16.2%, it seems that a fair number of students admitted to Occidental chose not attend. Conversely, for the Oxy Class of 2027, where the waitlist acceptance rate was 1.7%, many students clicked the ‘Yes’ button at the end of their Occidental College acceptance letter. The most important thing to keep in mind about yield is that it is a highly unpredictable metric that not even Occidental College’s admissions team can predict.

If we zoom out and look at the past four years altogether, the average waitlist acceptance rate was 8.6%. This is substantially lower than Occidental College’s overall acceptance rate of 44.2%. 

An overall waitlist admit rate of 8.6% isn’t the best odds, but we’ll say it again: it’s not a closed door. The good news is that you don’t have to rely on chance alone. If you approach Occidental College correctly after being waitlisted, you can stay on the sunny side of that 8.6%. 

How to Improve Your Child’s Chances of Admission Off the Occidental Waitlist 

You have a few options. You could go full Ethan Hunt and track down every accepted student to Occidental Hunt, knock on their door, and beg them not to take their offer. But that would be less Mission: Impossible and more an impossible mission. 

Or you could return to God, who’s been waiting for a call back from you for a couple of decades now. But even He doesn’t hold the keys to Oxy. 

Your best option is to write a letter of continued interest. Most people know about these letters. But they usually get the completely wrong advice about what to include in them: stuffing them full with dubious updates and bragging about how amazing the applicant has become in the few months since they applied. You could send that kind of letter. Or you can send the right kind of letter, the kind that will convince an Occidental College admissions officer to go to bat for you. 

Your Child’s Chances of Admission to Occidental College After Being Waitlisted with Ivy Coach’s Help 

Over the past 30 years, Ivy Coach has developed an excellent track record at getting our students off of elite universities’ waitlists. While only around 10% of regular waitlisted applicants ultimately receive admission, around 40% of students who work with Ivy Coach after being waitlisted go on to receive admission. 

It all comes down to our tried and true method of optimizing a student’s chances of getting out of limbo and onto their dream campus. It’s a two-step process: 

1. Complete Ivy Coach’s PostMortem application review. We need to see what a student did successfully and what they did wrong in their Occidental College application. The narrative we help craft can’t have fallen from the sky. Instead, it should be consistent with the story conveyed in the Occidental College application — just told in a way that’s actually going to win over the admissions team this time around. 
2. Submit a compelling Letter of Continued Interest. We’re sure many people have already told you to write Occidental College a letter, and we’re sure they’ve told you to be snappy with it. But we wonder: What have they told you to write in that letter? If they told you to fill it with brags and updates, definitely don’t do that. Ivy Coach’s letters to Occidental College contain no shrill bragging. It’s a big reason why they’re so successful. 

Getting Started with Ivy Coach on Occidental College Waitlist

If you’re interested in optimizing your chance of admission off of Occidental College ’s waitlist to the Class of 2030, complete Ivy Coach’s complimentary consultation form and indicate that Occidental College has waitlisted you. We will then be in touch about our services. We understand how important it is to spring into action quickly and that your letter needs to be sent out to Occidental College ASAP.