May 1
In addition to being the day for dancing around the maypole or celebrating the efforts of workers, May 1 is also the date by which all admitted students should notify us of their enrollment plans, and waitlisted applicants should let us know if they want to continue to wait. Both of those processes can be completed through the Graduate Application Management System.
A little side note on the waitlist. If you follow the news, or if you happen to know high school students applying to college, you may have heard that U.S. colleges and universities are building enormous waitlists to hedge against enrollment uncertainty, given the economic environment. Waitlists are always a hedge, but what’s different is that more applicants are being left in this gray zone.
If this news has been making you anxious, I want to reassure you that Fletcher did not approach the waitlist differently this year. The number of waitlist offers we made was in the normal range, and we expect to find that the usual percent will continue to wait. By next week, we should be able to get a fairly accurate count of matriculating students (though deferral requests continue to mess up our math) and then we’ll figure out our next steps.
Thanks, Minhae for your comment.
Olivia, those are good questions. Regarding the deferrals, you have the right idea — students who defer for a year (and, to a lesser extent, a semester) create an open spot in the class. Of course, we factor in the assumption that some students will defer their enrollment, but we’re cautious in our assumptions. If there is a high number of deferrals, it will definitely create space in the class.
As for the odds, we still don’t know. At this time, we don’t see a large number of open spaces, but we also don’t have an overly large cushion (to protect against the aforementioned deferrals). We’re going to hold for a bit while we assess.
But, as for your third question, we absolutely will phone or send an email to anyone admitted. You don’t need to check GAMS on a regular basis. As we go through the summer, we will also reduce the size of the wait list, and will notify applicants who are affected at that time.
I hope this is helpful!
Jessica
Jessica,
Thank you for keeping us posted on the wait list process. I have 3 questions:
1)Do admitted students who deffer a semester/ year allow a slot for a wait listed applicant?
2) What are the odds looking like this year for over-enrollment/the wait list to not move?
3) For those of us anxiously waiting to hear from Fletcher, should we expect an email notification from the Admission Committee if we are or even if we are not accepted?
Thank you for your blog- it makes the waiting process much more bearable!
Olivia
As one of the waitlisted student, I wanted to thank Fletcher for guiding us throughout the process.
Thanks Jessica!