At this time, we are currently making a small number of decisions for students on the Wait List. Because of the unusual circumstances that we have seen this year, I cannot predict when we will complete our Wait List review, and I do not have an exact date for any future offers or when we will be done with the process. Given that our deposit numbers are close to what we predicted for next year, and that we have the uncertainty of Covid-19 impacting decisions, we do not know yet how many Wait List decisions we will need to make. As such, I predict that if we were to go deeper into the Wait List, we would then make small waves of decisions over the next month or two while simultaneously monitoring deposits, withdraws and Wait List responses.
May 5 update: In reviewing the deposits we received as of May 1, we are extremely close to the number of students we plan to enroll for Fall 2020 (projected new freshmen is 5,600), but since we always project about 2-4% of our deposits to ultimately not enroll (due to personal situations, WL offers elsewhere, etc.), we will be admitting students off the Wait List. Out of the 1,150+ students who were offered the Wait List, roughly 700 decided to remain on the list. Late this afternoon, we will be offering admission off the Wait List to 300 students for the Fall 2020 term. For these students, their status page will show a new decision, and an email will then be sent out alerting them to a change in their status. Over the next few weeks/months, we will then see what the response to these offers is, and how our deposits and deposit/cancels are looking. As stated below, we are still not finished with the Wait List, and we will monitor the situation and then determine what steps to take next. I do not have a timeline for any further steps at this time, sorry.
When we do make a Wait List offer, we will be making these decisions in the same manner as our other admission decisions, where a decision will be displayed on the status page and an email will be sent shortly after a decision is made to alert the applicant that a status change has occurred. Admitted students have a two week Commitment Deposit deadline from the acceptance date. To be clear: WE ARE NOT FINISHED WITH THE WAIT LIST YET. As we will finalize things over the next few months. Only students who are admitted will receive a decision and an email indicating a change in their status.
In reviewing the students who we admitted off the Wait List, there were a variety of individual reasons for the offers that were made. As such, I cannot give an overarching reason for the decisions. We did take into account our earlier reviews of the files, along with a wide range of information that we had on hand. As a reminder, the Wait List FAQ has a great deal of information about the Wait List process.
Go Dawgs!