The uncertainty of being waitlisted by one of your top-choice colleges can cause a lot of anxiety. We hope that you’ve all been admitted to a school you’ll love, but we know many of you will be looking for answers during this suspenseful time.
The chances of being admitted off the waitlist at highly selective colleges have always been low, but the last few years have been especially unpredictable. Many schools have received record numbers of applications and, in some cases, overenrolled in previous years, while others saw underenrollment due to the pandemic and had more waitlist movement than anticipated. If you’re wondering about your waitlist schools, we’ve put together as much data as we know so far to help give you some clarity.
The first table below contains what we know now about when you should hear back, which schools have already gone to the waitlist, and which waitlists have already closed.
See the second table below for historical data on waitlist movement going back to 2019. You’ll see the number of students offered a place on the waitlist, the number of students who accepted their spot on the waitlist, and how many were ultimately offered admission. The admit rate was calculated based on the number of students who were admitted out of those who chose to stay on the waitlist.
Historical data was compiled using the Common Data Set (CDS) and is therefore dependent on what each school has chosen to report. If you’re not familiar with the CDS, try entering a search in your browser for “[School Name] common data set.” You’ll find a wealth of information on admissions statistics, graduation rates, financial aid, and much more.
Many colleges do not make their CDS publicly available or do not report all information requested — these include Bard, Barnard, Boston College, Brown, Columbia, Davidson, Duke, Franklin & Marshall, Grinnell, Harvard, NYU, Northeastern, Rutgers, University of Chicago, and Wake Forest, among others. Note that Vanderbilt has not provided waitlist information on the CDS but reports that an average of 12% of each class is enrolled off the waitlist.
| School | Waitlist Notification Date | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| American University | by May 31 | |
| Amherst College | class is full; waitlist closed | |
| Babson College | TBA | |
| Bard College | early May - mid-July | |
| Barnard College | usually early May | |
| Baylor University | applicants updated May 15 | |
| Bentley University | usually mid-May | |
| Boston College | reduced waitlist offers by 40% compared to last year | |
| Boston University | class is full; waitlist closed | |
| Bowdoin College | after May 1 | |
| Brandeis University | TBA | |
| Brown University | begins mid-May | |
| Bryn Mawr College | TBA | |
| Bucknell University | TBA | |
| California Institute of Technology (Caltech) | class is full; waitlist closed | |
| Carleton College | TBA | |
| Carnegie Mellon University | priority waitlist begins May 5 | class is full; waitlist closed |
| Case Western Reserve University | class is full; waitlist closed | |
| Claremont McKenna College | TBA | |
| Colby College | TBA | |
| Colgate University | by end of June | |
| College of Charleston | by June 15 | |
| College of William and Mary | by August 1 | applicants will be updated in mid-June |
| Colorado College | TBA | |
| Columbia University | class is full; no waitlist acceptances | |
| Cornell University | waitlist offers have begun for Fall 2022 | |
| Dartmouth College | waitlist offers have begun for Fall 2022 | |
| Davidson College | TBA | |
| Dickinson College | as early as mid-April | ~600 students offered a spot on the waitlist |
| Duke University | class is full; waitlist closed | |
| Elon University | TBA | |
| Emerson College | begins mid-May | |
| Emory University | waitlist offers have begun for Fall 2022 | |
| Fordham University | TBA | |
| Franklin and Marshall College | TBA | |
| George Washington University | class is full; no waitlist acceptances | |
| Georgetown University | by May 15 | |
| Georgia Institute of Technology | after May 2 | class is full; waitlist closed |
| Gonzaga University | TBA | |
| Grinnell College | by early July | |
| Hamilton College | begins May 1 | |
| Harvard University | by end of June | |
| Harvey Mudd College | applicants updated second week of May | |
| Haverford College | class is full; waitlist closed | |
| Indiana University - Bloomington | TBA | |
| Johns Hopkins University | after May 1 | |
| Kenyon College | class is full; waitlist closed | |
| Lafayette College | class is full; waitlist closed | |
| Lehigh University | waitlist offers have begun for Fall 2022 | |
| Loyola Marymount University | TBA | |
| Loyola University New Orleans | TBA | |
| Macalester College | by May 31 | |
| Miami University (Ohio) | mid-May - August 1 | |
| Middlebury College | TBA | |
| MIT | mid-May at the earliest | class is full; no waitlist acceptances |
| Mount Holyoke College | after May 1 | |
| New York University (NYU) | by August 1 | waitlist offers have begun for Fall 2022 |
| Northeastern University | waitlist offers have begun for Fall 2022 | |
| Northwestern University | waitlist offers have begun for Fall 2022 | |
| Oberlin | throughout the summer | |
| Pennsylvania State University | TBA | |
| Pitzer College | TBA | |
| Pomona College | begins early to mid-May | applicants updated mid-May |
| Princeton University | class is full; waitlist closed | |
| Reed College | TBA | |
| Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) | TBA | |
| Rhodes College | TBA | |
| Rice University | class is full; waitlist closed | |
| Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) | May 2 - August 1 | |
| Rutgers University | by August 1 | |
| Santa Clara University | through June | |
| Sarah Lawrence College | TBA | |
| Scripps College | begins late May | |
| Smith College | waitlist offers have begun for Fall 2022 | |
| Southern Methodist University (SMU) | TBA | |
| Stanford University | by July 1 | |
| Swarthmore College | TBA | |
| Syracuse University | waitlist offers have begun for Fall 2022 | |
| Texas Christian University (TCU) | late April - end of July | |
| Tufts University | by early June | |
| Tulane University | by July 1 | |
| University of California System | between May and August | waitlist offers have begun for Fall 2022 at USCB and UCLA |
| University of Chicago | class is full; waitlist closed | |
| University of Connecticut (UConn) | TBA | |
| University of Delaware | TBA | |
| University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | by late June | |
| University of Massachussetts-Amherst | beginning mid-May | |
| University of Miami | by June 15 | |
| University of Michigan | by mid-June | |
| University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill | by June 30 | waitlist offers have begun for Fall 2022 |
| University of Notre Dame | class is full; waitlist closed | |
| University of Pennsylvania | waitlist offers have begun for Fall 2022 | |
| University of Richmond | class is full; waitlist closed | |
| University of Rochester | early May - August 1 | |
| University of San Francisco | TBA | |
| University of Vermont | TBA | |
| University of Virginia | by June 30 | class is full; waitlist closed |
| University of Washington | closed for out-of-state students | |
| University of Wisconsin, Madison | by July 31 | |
| Vanderbilt University | early May - end of June | waitlist offers have begun for Fall 2022 |
| Vassar College | early may - July 1 | waitlist offers have begun for Fall 2022 |
| Villanova University | class is full; waitlist closed | |
| Virginia Institute of Technology (Virginia Tech) | by July 1 | |
| Wake Forest University | waitlist offers have begun for Fall 2022 | |
| Washington and Lee University | after May 1 | class is full; unlikely to admit additional waitlisted students |
| Washington University in St. Louis | waitlist offers have begun for Fall 2022 | |
| Wellesley College | before August 1 | |
| Wesleyan University | by June 30 | class is full; waitlist closed |
| Williams College | begins in May | class is full; waitlist closed |
| Worcester Polytechnic Institute | TBA | |
| Yale University | TBA | 1000 offered a spot on the waitlist |
| School | Waitlist Offered (2021) | Waitlist Accepted (2021) | Waitlist Admitted (2021) | Admit Rate (2021) | Waitlist Offered (2020) | Waitlist Accepted (2020) | Waitlist Admitted (2020) | Admit Rate (2020) | Waitlist Offered (2019) | Waitlist Accepted (2019) | Watilist Admitted (2019) | Admit Rate (2019) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| American University | 3,589 | 1,082 | 81 | 7.5% | 5,158 | 1,657 | 133 | 8% | 4,686 | 961 | 137 | 14.3% |
| Amherst College | 1,285 | 788 | 0 | 0% | 1,640 | 1,081 | 7 | 0.6% | 1,447 | 762 | 48 | 6.3% |
| Babson College | 1,676 | 660 | 121 | 18.3% | ||||||||
| Barnard College | 2,096 | unreported | 258 | 1,545 | unreported | 46 | ||||||
| Baylor University | 968 | 253 | 3 | 1.2% | 1,674 | 562 | 83 | 14.8% | 6,884 | 1,637 | 803 | 49.1% |
| Boston University | 8,791 | 5,592 | 674 | 12.1% | 5,235 | 2,987 | 339 | 11.3% | ||||
| Brandeis University | 2,088 | 832 | 99 | 11.9% | 1,553 | 638 | 9 | 1.4% | ||||
| Brown University | unreported | unreported | 28 | unreported | unreported | 194 | unreported | unreported | 127 | |||
| Bryn Mawr College | 1,026 | 640 | 17 | 2.7% | 865 | 531 | 17 | 3.2% | 627 | 335 | 37 | 11% |
| Bucknell University | 3,743 | 1,736 | 64 | 3.7% | 2,942 | 1,180 | 115 | 9.7% | 3,149 | 1,379 | 125 | 9.1% |
| California Institute of Technology (Caltech) | 268 | 213 | 0 | 0% | 312 | 235 | 10 | 4.3% | 501 | 394 | 5 | 1.3% |
| Carleton College | 1,367 | 580 | 11 | 1.9% | 1,325 | 603 | 76 | 12.6% | 1,522 | 664 | 0 | 0% |
| Carnegie Mellon University | 8,792 | 5,319 | 35 | 0.7% | 6,819 | 3,461 | 288 | 8.3% | 5,761 | 3,579 | 140 | 3.9% |
| Case Western Reserve University | 11,494 | 4,992 | 364 | 7.3% | 9,760 | 4,921 | 1,076 | 21.9% | 10,375 | 5,661 | 209 | 3.7% |
| Claremont McKenna College | 897 | 589 | 9 | 1.5% | 776 | 486 | 75 | 15.4% | 578 | 328 | 43 | 13.1% |
| Colby College | 3,668 | 1,454 | 19 | 1.3% | ||||||||
| Colgate University | 1,630 | 1,009 | 97 | 9.6% | 1,800 | 841 | 101 | 12% | ||||
| College of William and Mary | 4,720 | 2,417 | 38 | 1.6% | 3,080 | 1,714 | 145 | 8.5% | 3,937 | 1,989 | 186 | 9.4% |
| Colorado College | 739 | 174 | 0 | 0% | 700 | 224 | 23 | 10.3% | 1,052 | 275 | 23 | 8.4% |
| Cornell University | 7,746 | 5,800 | 24 | 0.4% | 6,750 | 4,791 | 190 | 4% | 4,948 | 3,362 | 147 | 4.4% |
| Dartmouth College | 2,669 | 2,120 | 0 | 0% | 2,661 | 1,945 | 95 | 4.9% | 2,151 | 1,381 | 0 | 0% |
| Dickinson College | 603 | 199 | 4 | 2% | 602 | 253 | 13 | 5.1% | 762 | 233 | 25 | 10.7% |
| Duke University | 381 | 334 | ||||||||||
| Elon University | 2,230 | 594 | 66 | 11.1% | 1,890 | 429 | 48 | 11.2% | 948 | 202 | 13 | 6.4% |
| Emory University | 6,539 | 3,883 | 21 | 0.5% | 5,215 | 2,898 | 447 | 15.4% | 4,679 | 3,731 | 168 | 4.5% |
| Fordham University | 8,603 | 2,210 | 1,058 | 47.9% | ||||||||
| George Washington University | 5,673 | 2,512 | 1,316 | 52.4% | 5,141 | 2,238 | 3 | 0.1% | ||||
| Georgetown University | 2,215 | 1,733 | 336 | 19.4% | 2,420 | 1,541 | 86 | 5.6% | ||||
| Georgia Institute of Technology | 6,613 | 4,916 | 275 | 5.6% | 6,214 | 4,235 | 853 | 20.1% | 3,800 | 2,623 | 632 | 24% |
| Gonzaga University | 1,060 | 487 | 142 | 29.2% | 859 | 384 | 287 | 74.7% | 807 | 184 | 53 | 28.8% |
| Grinnell College | 1,633 | 785 | 10 | 1.3% | ||||||||
| Hamilton College | 2,964 | 1,782 | 0 | 0% | 1,875 | 1,060 | 17 | 1.6% | 1,934 | 1,062 | 21 | 2% |
| Harvey Mudd College | 648 | 433 | 0 | 0% | 630 | 457 | 55 | 12% | 500 | 341 | 9 | 2.6% |
| Haverford College | 1,593 | 955 | 6 | 0.6% | 1,331 | 741 | 21 | 2.8% | 1,546 | 924 | 15 | 1.6% |
| Indiana University - Bloomington | 640 | 150 | 80 | 53.3% | 1,945 | 417 | 6 | 1.4% | ||||
| Johns Hopkins University | 2,108 | 1,421 | 0 | 0% | ||||||||
| Kenyon College | 1,826 | 1,027 | 1 | 0.1% | 12 | 12 | 4 | 33.3% | 2,161 | 1,231 | 12 | 1% |
| Lafayette College | 1,836 | 763 | 32 | 4.2% | 1,881 | 862 | 79 | 9.2% | 2,190 | 874 | 56 | 6.4% |
| Lehigh University | 4,124 | 2,079 | 102 | 4.9% | 4,361 | 1,875 | 1,684 | 89.8% | 6,212 | 2,480 | 1,307 | 52.7% |
| Loyola Marymount University | 5,114 | unreported | 172 | 4,257 | unreported | 779 | 3,596 | unreported | 17 | |||
| Macalester College | 1,218 | 535 | 0 | 0% | 760 | 336 | 112 | 33.3% | 801 | 415 | 54 | 13% |
| Middlebury College | 1,742 | 1,716 | 2 | 0.1% | 1,338 | 534 | 104 | 19.5% | 1,576 | 584 | 111 | 19% |
| MIT | 617 | 559 | 0 | 0.0% | 460 | 331 | 17 | 5.1% | ||||
| Mount Holyoke College | 530 | 276 | 2 | 0.7% | 515 | 294 | 52 | 17.7% | 769 | 438 | 57 | 13% |
| Northwestern University | unreported | unreported | 108 | 3,067 | 2,107 | 55 | 2.6% | |||||
| Oberlin | 1,491 | 1,368 | 100 | 7.3% | 1,541 | 1,369 | 149 | 10.9% | 1,076 | 793 | 89 | 11.2% |
| Pennsylvania State University | 2,481 | 1,519 | 1,451 | 95.5% | 4,651 | 2,911 | 1,169 | 40.2% | ||||
| Pitzer College | 500 | 148 | 30 | 20.3% | 583 | 186 | 23 | 12.4% | ||||
| Pomona College | 840 | 570 | 27 | 4.7% | 862 | 505 | 150 | 29.7% | 839 | 566 | 47 | 8.3% |
| Princeton University | 1,265 | 1,000 | 150 | 15% | 820 | 598 | 26 | 4.3% | 902 | 668 | 1 | 0.1% |
| Reed College | 3,285 | 1,066 | 1 | 0.1% | 1,264 | 421 | 48 | 11.4% | 1,577 | 523 | 51 | 9.8% |
| Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) | 2,302 | 1,342 | 72 | 5.4% | 4,896 | 3,128 | 78 | 2.5% | ||||
| Rhodes College | 1,380 | 687 | 1 | 0.1% | 757 | 363 | 34 | 9.4% | 1,237 | 332 | 74 | 22.3% |
| Rice University | 3,151 | 2,045 | 156 | 7.6% | 2,788 | 1,869 | 1 | 0.1% | ||||
| Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) | 930 | 758 | 211 | 27.80% | ||||||||
| Santa Clara University | 4,849 | 2,951 | 138 | 4.7% | 2,749 | 1,747 | 410 | 23.5% | 2,162 | 1,122 | 221 | 19.7% |
| Sarah Lawrence College | 901 | 433 | 127 | 29.3% | 1,088 | 500 | 31 | 6.2% | ||||
| Scripps College | 701 | 320 | 1 | 0.3% | 570 | 265 | 30 | 11.3% | 711 | 352 | 25 | 7.1% |
| Smith College | 1,717 | 891 | 0 | 0% | 1,155 | 684 | 67 | 9.8% | 1,027 | 587 | 76 | 12.9% |
| Southern Methodist University (SMU) | 1,787 | 821 | 236 | 28.7% | 2,043 | 765 | 340 | 44.4% | 2,407 | 1,078 | 45 | 4.2% |
| Stanford University | 652 | 535 | 61 | 11.4% | 850 | 707 | 259 | 36.6% | 750 | 580 | 8 | 1.4% |
| Swarthmore College | unreported | unreported | 0 | 0% | unreported | unreported | 33 | uneported | unreported | 27 | ||
| Syracuse University | 8,859 | 3,158 | 611 | 19.3% | ||||||||
| Texas Christian University (TCU) | 1,745 | 733 | 78 | 10.6% | 1,248 | 688 | 530 | 77% | 1,690 | 779 | 341 | 43.8% |
| Tufts University | 2,579 | 1,264 | 0 | 0% | 2,136 | 1,017 | 222 | 21.8% | 1,441 | 524 | 84 | 16% |
| Tulane University | 5,072 | 1,871 | 0 | 0% | 12,813 | 4,486 | 0 | 0% | 5,412 | 1,371 | 0 | 0% |
| UC Berkeley | 11,725 | 6,871 | 359 | 5.2% | 8,753 | 5,043 | 1,651 | 32.7% | 7,531 | 3,975 | 1,098 | 27.6% |
| UC Irvine | 8,765 | 1,288 | 189 | 14.7% | 18,621 | 11,081 | 2,664 | 24% | 17,018 | 8,608 | 1,610 | 18.7% |
| UCLA | 15,242 | 9,897 | 214 | 2.2% | 14,470 | 9,254 | 1,779 | 19.2% | ||||
| UCSB | 14,076 | 9,762 | 2,093 | 21.4% | 9,885 | 6,342 | 6,103 | 96.2% | 8,863 | 5,866 | 603 | 10.3% |
| UCSD | 25,419 | 8,835 | 0 | 0% | 19,714 | 14,265 | 5,282 | 37% | 19,976 | 12,426 | 4,313 | 34.7% |
| University of Connecticut (UConn) | 2,808 | 1,117 | 203 | 18.2% | 1,937 | 886 | 830 | 93.7% | ||||
| University of Delaware | 3,207 | 581 | 341 | 58.7% | 1,276 | 420 | 314 | 74.8% | ||||
| University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | 1,935 | 1,204 | 468 | 38.9% | 3,036 | 1,791 | 0 | 0% | ||||
| University of Massachussetts-Amherst | 4,056 | 2,361 | 1,055 | 44.7% | 4,381 | 2,326 | 396 | 17% | 2,188 | 1,013 | 0 | 0% |
| University of Miami | 13,095 | 4,643 | 13 | 0.3% | 11,444 | 3,664 | 781 | 21.3% | 8,795 | 2,143 | 366 | 17.1% |
| University of Michigan | 17,805 | 13,063 | 68 | 0.5% | 20,723 | 9,856 | 1,248 | 12.7% | 12,527 | 4,922 | 89 | 1.8% |
| University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill | 8,957 | 6,564 | 167 | 2.5% | 6,620 | 3,887 | 647 | 16.6% | 5,572 | 3,717 | 156 | 4.2% |
| University of Notre Dame | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0% | 1,778 | 1,253 | 530 | 42.3% | 1,600 | 1,028 | 108 | 10.5% |
| University of Pennsylvania | 3,205 | 2,350 | 391 | 16.6% | 2,932 | 2,051 | 101 | 4.9% | ||||
| University of Richmond | 3,891 | 886 | 9 | 10.5% | 3,406 | 1,717 | 113 | 6.6% | 4,027 | 1,249 | 81 | 6.5% |
| University of Rochester | 3,587 | 2,111 | 382 | 18.1% | 3,605 | 2,339 | 71 | 3% | ||||
| University of San Francisco | 1,741 | 1,062 | 126 | 11.9% | 1,704 | 871 | 755 | 86.7% | ||||
| University of Vermont | 6,190 | 3,030 | 198 | 6.5% | 2,927 | 1,246 | 134 | 10.8% | 3,802 | 1,679 | 7 | 0.4% |
| University of Virginia | 8,690 | 4,924 | 86 | 1.7% | 6,465 | 3,780 | 165 | 4.4% | 5,486 | 2,969 | 8 | 0.3% |
| University of Washington | 10,239 | 4,565 | 775 | 17.0% | 9,726 | 4,712 | 1,870 | 39.7% | 7,775 | 3,040 | 2,394 | 78.8% |
| University of Wisconsin, Madison | 8,128 | 4,335 | 14 | 0.3% | 8,913 | 5,085 | 2,861 | 56.3% | ||||
| Vassar College | 1,526 | 634 | 96 | 15.1% | 867 | 431 | 60 | 13.9% | 1,139 | 570 | 29 | 5.1% |
| Villanova University | 6,555 | 2,563 | 210 | 8.2% | 5,553 | 2,586 | 104 | 4% | ||||
| Virginia Institute of Technology (Virginia Tech) | 14,952 | 9,176 | 3,292 | 35.9% | 10,800 | 6,990 | 3,959 | 56.6% | ||||
| Washington and Lee University | 2,207 | 1,150 | 11 | 1% | 1,391 | 743 | 39 | 5.2% | 1,805 | 856 | 31 | 3.6% |
| Washington University in St. Louis | unreported | 2,696 | 915 | 33.9% | unreported | 1,968 | 189 | 9.6% | ||||
| Wellesley College | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0% | 2,252 | 926 | 52 | 5.6% | 2,061 | 1,221 | 99 | 8.1% |
| Wesleyan University | 3,585 | 2,031 | 10 | 0.5% | 2,302 | 1,370 | 133 | 9.7% | 1,945 | 1,076 | 94 | 8.7% |
| Williams College | 2,371 | 929 | 1 | 0.1% | 1,944 | 846 | 73 | 8.6% | 1,857 | 651 | 25 | 3.8% |
| Worcester Polytechnic Institute | 2,413 | 978 | 0 | 0% | 2,450 | 1,063 | 489 | 46% | 2,559 | 1,157 | 450 | 38.9% |
| Yale University | 1,030 | 774 | 4 | 0.5% |
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