What have people done to reverse a college admissions decision?
I was asked to answer the question above on the website Quora.com
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There are lots of stories
out there about how students tried to change the decision of an admission
committee. Some, I think, are urban legends (the guy who pitched a tent outside
the admission office of an Ivy and said he would not leave till he got an offer), but
I know a few to be true.
The first thing to distinguish is whether the student has been wait-listed or flat out denied. In one case, taking action can result in getting in; in the other, it is very, very rare that the decision will be changed at highly selective colleges and universities.
1. Wait List
Most schools build into their enrollment projections a set of spaces for students to come off the waiting list. Even if the acceptances are far higher than they thought, most will still take a few off the wait list as they are often ‘specials”. Specials are the ones that often fall under the rubric of "development” cases. These are the ones that have the capacity to bring in very big dollars in addition to their tuition. They often are not taken right off because their academic credentials are not great and they tend to go to schools where lots of others have applied and it creates PR problems when word gets out a much weaker student was admitted during regular decision. Taking a student off the wait list late in the process usually does not generate nearly the furor as taking a weaker student in June is not nearly as big an issue, as most students have set their minds on where they are going. Generally schools know well ahead of time who is from the background to fall into the development groups but it occasionally happens that this information gets “supplemented’ Harvard usually makes some its development cases wait a semester or year in hopes that by then almost all the other folks that know the family and the child will no longer be incensed when he or she gets in.
The first thing to distinguish is whether the student has been wait-listed or flat out denied. In one case, taking action can result in getting in; in the other, it is very, very rare that the decision will be changed at highly selective colleges and universities.
1. Wait List
Most schools build into their enrollment projections a set of spaces for students to come off the waiting list. Even if the acceptances are far higher than they thought, most will still take a few off the wait list as they are often ‘specials”. Specials are the ones that often fall under the rubric of "development” cases. These are the ones that have the capacity to bring in very big dollars in addition to their tuition. They often are not taken right off because their academic credentials are not great and they tend to go to schools where lots of others have applied and it creates PR problems when word gets out a much weaker student was admitted during regular decision. Taking a student off the wait list late in the process usually does not generate nearly the furor as taking a weaker student in June is not nearly as big an issue, as most students have set their minds on where they are going. Generally schools know well ahead of time who is from the background to fall into the development groups but it occasionally happens that this information gets “supplemented’ Harvard usually makes some its development cases wait a semester or year in hopes that by then almost all the other folks that know the family and the child will no longer be incensed when he or she gets in.
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But for the 99% of the rest on the wait list there are some things any student should do. If it is true that a student can put into writing that the school is the first choice and that he or she will enroll if offered, then that should be put in writing and sent off posthaste. Schools don’t like it when people don’t take spaces from the wait list. It hurts yield, so some schools call and ask if a student will accept an offer prior to sending the offer. Some schools give the student 24 hours to decide (which I think is ethically questionable).
Some of the gimmicks have run their course. For a while, students sent a shoe with a note “now that I have one foot in the door I hope I can be a part of the class”. The first time it was cute but it’s way past its shelf life and there are piles of shoes in admission offices that don't ever get a match.
My personal favorite approach came from a student who was wait listed 4 years ago. She was from China but finished high school in school in Florida. She flew to the school I worked for and without telling our office she spent an entire day walking around talking with all sorts of people. By the end of the day she had letters from professors, students, office workers, groundskeepers, baristas, etc. etc. And with each letter there was also a photo with her and the person who had written for her. It added up to more pages than most books. She will be graduating this year from this school and has been a huge success in and out of class. I talk with her all the time.
If you want to read more about her go here.
Remember: this worked once and I doubt it would work again, at least at the same school. There is not template for getting in off the wait list. Original approaches sometimes work, but sometimes fall flat. The best advice I can give is to put a deposit in at some other school and assume that is where you will end up going. Schools tend to ut huge numbers of students on the watit list; therefore, the odds of any individual students getting off are small. Even if you come off the wait list that is no reason to drop the other school. Look carefully at the options. Being a star at a school is much more important than the ranking of the school in terms of future success.
Of course, the standard thing for wait list people to do is to update information: grades, awards, honors etc. Getting more recommendations usually is not all that much help unless they come from the oval office or a governor’s office or the rector of the board’s office.
On the other hand, I can’t speak for others, but those students who show up on campus and reach out and talk have often helped themselves. Schools don’t encourage this as many schools wait list thousands of students so they say they can’t talk with them in any formal way during April and usually overall too. But students show up anyway and ask to speak to a dean or admission officer. In some cases, the conversations I have had with students like this have been so compelling that I advocated strongly to take them off the wait list. I don’t know how common this might be at most schools, but demonstrating continued interest and strong academic performance are the two big-ticket items for reconsideration of students who are on the wait list.
2. Deny
Schools very rarely change decisions. I would say this is especially true at the most selective schools. If word gets out that someone went from a deny to an offer all of a sudden thousands of students would ask for re-consideration which would, in effect, mean a whole new reading season for the employees in admission offices. April is the time to recruit admits. There is no time to spend untold hours going over denys.
Exceptions:
Incorrect information: If the information submitted by the secondary school is incorrect and the school lets a school know this then there will be reconsideration. But the student somehow has to find out about the wrong information and this will not come from the college.
Special talent: Some students who have been denied are suddenly of interest to a coach (it is almost always athletes who get this treatment). Colleges hate this as the coaches are supposed to everyone on their lists to the admission office well in advance of decisions. But it does happen that a student suddenly gets a whole lot better or simply decides not to go to the school they were thinking of and then it may be that the decision would be changed.
Special circumstances: After decisions have gone out students or secondary school sometimes contact colleges with additional information. In most cases this updated information helps to explain a lackluster academic performance. It usually involves some form of trauma or some form of disaster. For example, a school may let a college know that the student was sexually assaulted but did not tell anyone until recently. Or a student may have chosen not to say that they were undergoing cancer treatment as they did not want the schools to think he or she was soliciting pity. The circumstances have to be pretty dramatic. There is some sort of suffering scale I guess. Divorce usually won’t do it, nor will eating disorders or depression. (Schools will never say this but in my experience these sorts of things virtually never get a decision changed.)
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Most of what people try who have been denied simply won’t work. The mother who came to the office broke down in tears, got down on her knees and begged was sad. This event still haunts me, but it did not change the decision. I may be cold-hearted, but the student was not all that compelling and I simply felt I could not respond positively.
As far as my own begging and pleading, I have been in situations in which I fought with every resource I had to convince the office to take a great kid off the wait list. But I some cases I could do nothing. The good news is that the student did well where she or he went and has done well in life. Getting into a school is a very big deal in April of the senior year. It tends to become far less tragic for those who did not get in with each successive month that goes by.
Most of what people try who have been denied simply won’t work. The mother who came to the office broke down in tears, got down on her knees and begged was sad. This event still haunts me, but it did not change the decision. I may be cold-hearted, but the student was not all that compelling and I simply felt I could not respond positively.
As far as my own begging and pleading, I have been in situations in which I fought with every resource I had to convince the office to take a great kid off the wait list. But I some cases I could do nothing. The good news is that the student did well where she or he went and has done well in life. Getting into a school is a very big deal in April of the senior year. It tends to become far less tragic for those who did not get in with each successive month that goes by.
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