How to Get Off the College Waitlist in聽2025
March 20, 2025
After battling through the epic journey of the college application process, with all its emotional twists and turns, the torturous anticipation, the potential heaven of acceptance or hell of rejection, judgment day has finally arrived. You tear open the envelope and frantically scan the letter for a telling phrase. You are 鈥渙ffered a spot…鈥� So far, so good鈥� 鈥溾�n the waitlist.鈥� Ugh. Welcome to the college waitlist, otherwise known as admissions purgatory.
This is not the time to get lost in the miasma of despair, sitting around passively and plaintively awaiting an inevitable second rejection. Rather, after landing on the waitlist, it is time to redouble your efforts and do everything you can to show your dream school that they made a mistake. Of course, this all has to be done with a recognition of the realities of the world of waitlists (which we will reveal momentarily). In the following article, we will explore:
- Encouraging waitlist acceptance rates
- Depressing waitlist acceptance rates
- Ivy League waitlist acceptance rates
- How you can improve your odds of getting off the college waitlist
- How to adopt a winning and reality-based mindset
Let鈥檚 start with the positives by first exploring why the college waitlist exists.
An Optimist’s View of the College Waitlist
Colleges do not place students on the waitlist to soften the blow of rejection or to spread false hope. The waitlist exists as a useful tool that provides institutions with a safety net against tough-to-predict yield rates. (Note: a yield rate is the number of students who actually enroll divided by the number of accepted students.) Thus, the percentage of students plucked off the waitlist varies greatly from year to year and some schools are generally more 鈥渨aitlist-friendly鈥� than others.
For example, highly selective Vassar College accepted 171 of 523 (33%) waitlisted students into the 2024-25 freshman class. Yet, three years prior, they accepted only 15% off of their waitlist. Considering that the college鈥檚 overall acceptance rate is around 19%, neither of these figures should be particularly discouraging. At American University, 36% of those who accepted a position on the waitlist were ultimately accepted to the university (not far off from their overall acceptance rate of 47%). UC Berkeley may be the most extreme example of a reason to keep your spirits high; they accepted 1,191 of the 4,820 waitlisted students (25%) aiming to join the 2023-24 freshman class. Unfortunately, the acceptance rate for the waitlisted Class of 2028 was only 3%.
Some notable highly selective colleges sported double-digit waitlist acceptance rates in the 2023-24 cycle. These include:
- Pomona College: 11%
- UCLA: 12%
- US Naval Academy: 13%
- Colorado College: 14%
- Harvey Mudd College: 14%
- Stanford University: 15%
- Tufts University: 15%
- Macalester College: 17%
While one year鈥檚 results are not exactly a reliable signpost for what lies down the road, it is important to remember that you may simply luck into a good year for waitlist acceptances.
A Pessimist’s View of the College Waitlist
Of course, waitlist odds are generally not exactly in a student鈥檚 favor. The flip side of those moderately encouraging stats above is that many elite schools take only 1-2% off of their waitlists. Others, at least in certain years, do not accept a single waitlisted student.
Amherst is an extreme example of the sheer volatility of waitlist acceptance rates. In 2023-24, just 1% of the 623 waitlisted students ended up with an offer of admission. The year prior, however, 8% of waitlisted students earned a spot in the freshman class.
Similarly, last year, 2,198 students were offered a position on the Bates College waitlist, 855 signed up, and 68 were ultimately offered admission (8%). Waitlisted students for the Class of 2026 fared much worse, though, as not a single student (of 1,264) was admitted.
Purdue’s waitlist has grown similarly competitive (and unpredictable). In 2022-23, a paltry .3% of the 5,548 students on the waitlist were accepted (yes, less than half a percent). However, in 2023-24, that number increased to a still low yet significantly friendlier 9%.
Here’s a peek at the waitlist statistics that will make you want to crawl into bed with a pint of ice cream:
- Boston University: .4%
- Georgia Tech: 1%
- Middlebury: 1%
- Wellesley College: 2%
- Emory College: 4%
- Johns Hopkins: 4%
- University of Michigan: 5%
- Georgetown: 6%
What is the Ivy League waitlist acceptance rate?
The Ivies tend to have sizable numbers of students accepting places on the waitlist, which makes sense since they are often high-achieving students鈥� first-choice schools. Below are the 2024-25 statistics for the five Ivies that report waitlist stats (except ‘s, which are from 2023-24).
As you can see, percentages fluctuate greatly. It’s not uncommon to see zero students accepted off the waitlist at an Ivy; this was actually the case at both Dartmouth and Yale in 2023-24.
| School Name | # on Waitlist | # Accepted | Acceptance Rate |
| Cornell | 6,166 | 362 | 6% |
| Dartmouth | 2,189 | 29 | 13% |
| Princeton | 1,396 | 40 | 3% |
| University of Pennsylvania | 2,288 | 40 | 2% |
| Yale | 565 | 23 | 4% |
Can I improve my odds of getting off the college waitlist?
Some schools, like Carnegie Mellon, offer students the option of joining their 鈥淧riority Waitlist,鈥� which means that you pledge to attend if admitted. It鈥檚 like an early decision equivalent to the waitlist round. Even so, Carnegie Mellon admitted just 32 of 10,062 waitlisted students in 2024鈥攖hat’s .3%. In 2023, 75 of 5,106 students were successful (1.5%), but in 2021, 8% received good news. Again, it remains a guessing game.
For all other schools, the number one thing students can do while on the waitlist is communicate clearly, firmly, and respectfully to the admissions office that, if offered, you will accept a spot at the school. Admissions officers like knowing that they have students who will enroll if called upon. Accordingly, a sincere letter to the admissions office, also known as a letter of continued interest, and an occasional check-in from a guidance counselor can help move the needle.
That said, waitlisted students who obsessively pepper the dean of admissions’ inbox with crazed inquiries typically do not do themselves any favors. Remember, colleges are looking for the next productive member of their freshman class, not the next deranged campus stalker.
Of equal importance to expressing a student鈥檚 intentions is, not surprisingly, maintaining a strong academic performance. Spring grades, another teacher recommendation, an SAT or ACT retake, or a recent unique accomplishment can help sway an admissions committee.
What should I do while I wait?
Give yourself a pep talk. No matter what happens, you are not in dire straits, you are not desperate, and your future does not depend on getting into any one college or university. None of your dreams are, in reality, squashed. You will still study biology/computer science/engineering/political science/psychology (or any other major) at a reputable institution with experienced PhD-level professors. Your path toward your graduate school/career goals will still be just as clear as ever before because you are you and you are bright and hard-working.
While you wait for a decision,聽 submit a non-refundable deposit at your first-choice school to which you鈥檝e been accepted. There are no bonus points awarded for declaring that if you do not get off of the Tufts’ waitlist, you鈥檒l skip college altogether and become a street performer. If the call off of the waitlist never comes, grieve as you must, and then move on and get ready to thrive at your second-choice school. After all, the second-choice school surely has a waitlist full of people stuck in their own purgatory who can only dream of being in your shoes. In the end, it’s all about perspective.
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