What seniors can do while they wait

It’s a year of applications for my family. My oldest child has applied to seven colleges, and my youngest has applied to three private high schools. All the applications are in, and there’s already one college acceptance. But other than that, we’re not expecting to hear anything until early March. That’s fine with me; it means I don’t really have to think about them for another month or so. There’s nothing for me to do. But it’s driving my wife nuts. She hates the waiting, and is thinking about notifications daily.

I have some consulting clients in the same boat as my wife. I’ve had two meetings recently where students are anxious about how to move forward not knowing where all they will be accepted. It’s hard to be in this space where they feel no control and there aren’t any more steps for them to take right now. They have hundreds of “what if?” questions going through their mind.

If you’re a high school senior who has sent off all their applications and are in the same kind of anxious waiting zone, then here are some suggestions for what you can do with your time while you wait—without driving yourself nuts.

Focus on high school. You’re not done being a high school student yet, and you’re planning on being a college student in the near future. So you need to be a good student, even for the next few months. Maybe your GPA isn’t quite as important to you now, but you probably have some big tests and projects coming up. If they’re important to you, then take care not to lose sight of them. Now is the time for a final high school push of studying and preparation. Focus as much energy as possible on that. If you’ve got any wisdom to share with underclassmen, now is the time. And even if you don’t have any more big to-do items left this semester, do not under any circumstances let yourself get lulled into doing something that will actually hurt you. Don’t fail classes, don’t cheat, don’t break the law. If all you have to do to get through high school is keep your head down and not mess it up…don’t mess it up.

Research some more. You’ve already applied to these schools, but you can still get to know them better. Are you interested in joining a sorority or fraternity? Figure out what’s available at each school you’ve applied to, and try to understand the process for joining—it’s not necessarily the same everywhere. Interested in intramural sports? See what each school offers and how to join. You can also do some research on how transportation works in the area of the schools. Is there good public transportation? How far is campus from airports, bus stations, and train stations? Are rideshare apps in strong use? What do students do near campus but not on campus? What are the different types of rooms available? What are the career services offices like? What scholarships are still available for application? There are some online deep dives you can do to help you make a final decision, and you can start on those right now.

Put some things on the calendar. Once colleges accept you, they’re going to try to get you to choose them and send in your deposit. Most will have some kind of accepted-student events on campus, and some may also have events for accepted students in your home town (if you live in a large enough home town). Spend some time to find out what sorts of events the colleges you’ve applied to will be having. If you can’t find them on their websites, email the admissions departments and ask. Get a feeling now for what may end up on your calendar in March and April.

Take time to give thanks and give back. At a minimum, send individual thank-you notes to all the people who helped you with your college applications. That includes teachers who wrote recommendations, your counselor, anyone who helped look over written responses, and anyone else who gave you advice. If you have time, also do some volunteering. This not only helps you get outside your own anxiety, but it helps others. This doesn’t need to be a project: you don’t need to plan, organize, or create anything. Just find a place where you can volunteer some time and talent and go do it. Check food banks, libraries, and aid organizations.

Plan new habits. You’re about to go through a major life change, one that will affect your daily routines and entire sense of self. Times of transition like these are when new habits get set and old habits get broken. You can be pro-active about what kinds of habits you’d like to instill when you begin college, even if you’re living at home. What kind of good habits would you like to pick up but have been struggling to make a part of your life? The summer before college, and especially your first few weeks of college, are the times to make those happen. Don’t try to plan your whole life—don’t even try to plan your whole day. There’s so much you don’t even know about how your days will work in a new place. But if you’ve been wanting to start a new exercise routine, adopt a different wardrobe, or change your online habits, understand that the next few months present the best opportunity for you to do so. Start making a plan now.

Go over the numbers. Each college’s financial aid offer will look different, and they can be hard to compare. However, there are three numbers that you need to stay focused on as offers come in: the maximum cost that your family can afford or is willing to play; the cost to attend for each of the colleges that accept you; the total debt amount for each of the colleges that accepts you. These numbers aren’t always easy to find. If you look over an aid offer and still can’t figure out how much you’ll need to pay and/or borrow, call the aid office and ask them. If your family still won’t give you a sense of what’s affordable, keep asking.

Seniors, it may be an exciting spring for you! I wish you well as notifications and news comes in.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Read this related post:

   Three things seniors can do while they wait

   They put you on a wait list. Now what?

   Five considerations before making a last-minute decision

3. Ask a question in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Zoe Herring

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The element that's missing from a lot of LOCIs

So first, LOCI means Letter of Continued Interest. It’s what you write to a college who is offering you a wait list spot if you want to be on their wait list. It’s where you explain to them that you still really want to go to their school.

I don’t actually think you should take a wait list spot if you have affordable acceptances from any other colleges. I recommend the emotional empowerment of basically saying "screw you and your waitlist, I'm going to a place that already recognizes my awesomeness." (You may not want to literally say that.)

But if you do decide to hold out hope and take a place on the wait list, you’ll probably write a LOCI. Make sure, however, that the college wants one. Some schools require them, but some ask you not to send one. If there are any instructions from the individual school, follow those instructions!

In many LOCIs, there's a looming question a lot of people don’t address: if this is your top-choice school and you want to go here so badly, why didn’t you apply Early Decision? You’re writing this letter now saying that you love the college, it’s your first-choice pick, and if they accept you—even late in the summer—you will go there. The way to signal to a college that it’s your Number One and that you will definitely attend if admitted is to apply ED. So why didn’t you? You should address this directly. This is the thing that’s missing from a lot of LOCIs—explaining what’s changed—and you can make your LOCI better by addressing it. Even if you’re writing a LOCI for a college that doesn’t offer ED, you can write a stronger letter by thinking about this question and answering as if they did.

There are three main answers for why a person has a top-choice but didn’t apply ED if they could have.

One reason is that you’ve learned more about the school. Since applying, you’ve done more research, gone on a visit, or somehow gotten a better idea of what the school is all about. If this applies, say so, and explain what changed. Tell them what you’ve learned about them since you submitted your application. Be as specific as possible. Or maybe you are the one who’s changed. You’ve gained a better understanding of yourself or have made some major decisions that make the school a lot more attractive now than it was at the end of last year. Either way, the college feels like a much stronger fit that it did when you had the chance to apply ED. Make that clear, and give concrete details.

Another reason people don’t apply ED to a top-choice school is that they are fearful of applying ED because they want to compare financial aid offers. That’s perfectly reasonable and understandable. If you’re now in a situation where you wanted to apply ED to a school but held off for financial aid reasons, but the other financial aid offers you got just aren’t good enough to make you change your mind, say so. Make sure you discuss this with your family first, though. You’re basically signaling that attending the college is more important to you than financial aid. That’s potentially a very expensive thing to say, so be thoughtful about saying it. No, you’re not obligated to take a waitlist spot if they offer you one but don’t offer enough financial aid to make it affordable. But understand up front that they’re probably not going to offer much financial aid, because their budget may be limited by the time they get to the wait list. So if you think it’s a strong possibility that you won’t be able to afford to go even if they offer you a place, you may not want to bother with the LOCI and wait list.

There’s a third situation that’s tricky to write about. That’s when you’re asking for a wait list spot not because the college is really your first-choice pick, but because your first-choice pick didn’t accept you, and maybe your second also didn’t accept you, and now the top of your list is the one who waitlisted you. It’s hard to tell them “you never were my favorite, but now I guess you are, because all my favorites didn’t accept me. I’m feeling a little desperate.” You don’t need to hide this or feel embarrassed. Still, your LOCI will be stronger if you take the time do some research and write most of your LOCI as if you’ve learned a lot more about the school and/or learned more about yourself.

What else should you include in a LOCI? Give them any updates that may be useful. Has your GPA gone up at all? Have you won any awards, completed any big projects, or done anything else noteworthy? If there's anything that's substantially changed for the better since you applied, let them know about it. All this is going into a single page. Unless the school directs you otherwise, aim for 400-500 words.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Read these related posts:

   Three things seniors can do while they wait

   Make your choice and don’t look back

   Dealing with denial

3. Ask a question in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth.

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.

They put you on a wait list. Now what?

I was already planning to post the annual “what to do if you’re waitlisted” post, and then Rick Clark, the Director of Undergraduate Admissions at Georgia Tech, published this really great blog post about the wait list two days ago. Take a few minutes to read it, and then come back. As Clark points out, every school has their own wait list procedure, and you may have a wait list offer from someone other than Georgia Tech you need to consider. You read it? You’re back? Great.

First, let me say I’m sorry. Getting waitlisted sucks. In some ways a Maybe is worse than a No, because it keeps the suspense going and also starts to make logistical problems for you. Take a little time to be frustrated or angry or completely freaked out, but no more than a day or two. You’ve got to figure out what to do next.

What to do if you get waitlisted to a school that’s your only option.

This may be because you only applied to one school, or you got denials from the other schools you applied to. If it’s because you got accepted to at least one other school but the financial aid offer is so bad that you can’t afford it, then you should also consider ways to ask that school for more money.

First you’ve got to demonstrate a lot of interest and keep demonstrating it. When a college starts calling people from the wait list, they’re often in a hurry. Even if they’re not in a hurry, they don’t want to waste their time. They’re more likely to call people who they know will enroll over people they’re not sure about. How do they know you’ll enroll? Just putting yourself on the wait list isn’t enough. Email—once—the admissions office and tell them: “if you accept me from the wait list, I will attend.” Open all their emails and reply when appropriate. Spend time looking on their website. Ask them questions if you really have questions, but don’t pester them. While it’s a thin line between “eager and attentive” and “annoying and desperate,” make sure you don’t cross it.

Next, you’ve got to understand that there’s no senioritis for you! It’s normal for seniors to slack off a little bit once they see the end in sight and know that they’ll be at college next year. You don’t yet know that you’ll be in college next year. If you’re hoping to get a spot from a wait list and you’re in contact with the college that waitlisted you, you need to be able to tell them that you’re doing really well and trying to prove yourself. You’re not done yet, and that’s ok.

You also need a back-up plan. You can start searching for colleges with rolling admissions or late deadlines. If you haven’t already, check out your local community college, which is a real college. You can explore gap year options. You should probably do all of these, and make sure you talk to your family about your options. The only bad option is to decide that you’re going to give up on going to college. There’s no reason to do that.

What to do if you get waitlisted to a school but you’ve been accepted to other schools.

If you get waitlisted by one college you applied to, but have affordable acceptances from at least one other, then don’t sign up for the wait list. You don’t need it. Just tell them to go away, you have a better offer elsewhere. It can feel really good to know that you’re the one making the decisions, not the other way around. You have power in this situation—use it. Thank them for their time, and then move on and let it go.

What to do if you get waitlisted from your top-choice school and you want to stay on the wait list.

Sometimes it’s not that easy to tell them to go away, and you sign up for the wait list anyway. No problem.

First, do all the same things you’d do if the wait list school is your only option. Sign up the for wait list, and contact the admissions rep for your area and let them know that if they call you, you will come. Reply to all their emails and keep checking back on their website. Keep demonstrating your interest, because it really counts in this situation. Keep working at school—no senioritis for you, either.

Choose your “backup” school from the ones you got accepted to, understanding that it’s probably where you’re going next year. You can't refuse to make other plans hoping that you'll hear back from the school that waitlisted you. Depending on the college and the year (even if you look up their statistics from last year, they will surely be wildly different this year), your chances of hearing good news later are either slim, very slim, or maddeningly slim. Once you take a spot at your backup school, you might quickly find that it’s no longer your backup and change your mind about the wait list.

Take a rational approach to figuring out your limits. You need an analytical way to think about the costs and benefits of hanging on to hope that you hear back from this school. You could make a spreadsheet. You could study up on opportunity cost and the sunk cost fallacy.

You can also think about all the extra hoops you have to jump through as extra fees that the dream school adds on to your bill.

Say you get waitlisted from Dream School, and you accept a place at Decent School and put down a $1,000 non-refundable deposit, and then Dream School calls back and gives you a spot. Think of that $1,000 as a one-time fee. Ask yourself: do I want to go to Dream School even if they charge me an extra $1,000 fee they don't charge most people? If your answer is yes then you know what to do. But as time goes on, the fees add on. If you also make a $500 housing deposit, then the one-time fee to drop Decent School and go to Dream School is now $1,500. And if you've already paid transportation costs, add those to the fees.

The really hard part is that the fees can also be emotional. Would you take a spot at Dream School even if they charged you a one-time fee of $1,500, and made you get emotionally invested in finding a roommate who you will now abandon, and made you buy t-shirts for some other school and pretend for four months that you were going to some other school? What if Dream School will also make you register late for classes and have fewer options than other first-year students for the first semester? What if they'll also take away the opportunity to use Facebook groups to seek out your own choice of roommate but instead stick you wherever they have happen to have room left? These are all real possibilities of getting pulled from the wait list, and the sanest way to think about them ahead of time is to think of them as additional fees the Dream School charges. Think about where your threshold is, how much you are actually willing to pay. Talk to your family about it, too. Then you can rationally figure out, if you do get the call, whether you say Thank You or Bug Off.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, here are three easy things you can do:

1. Share it on your social media feeds so your friends and colleagues can see it too.

2. Check out these related Apply with Sanity posts:

   The Glossary: rolling admissions

   Dealing with denial

   Making the call before May 1

3. Ask a question in the comments section.

Apply with Sanity doesn’t have ads or annoying pop-ups. It doesn’t share user data, sell user data, or even track personal data. It doesn’t do anything to “monetize” you. You’re nothing but a reader to me, and that means everything to me.

Photo by Angela Elisabeth.

Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC. All rights reserved.