Wait-Listed & Rejected Students
How to help students handle disappointments
Wait-listed or rejected students will rely on you for insight and direction on how to proceed with their college enrollment plans. How do you guide them?
Advising wait-listed students
The handful of seniors who discover that they have been wait-listed—neither accepted nor rejected—may present the biggest challenge. Do you give them hope and tell them to stay on the waiting list? Or do you advise them to move on?
The waiting list is the school's safety net: if a number of accepted students decide not to attend, the school will replace them with students on the waiting list, so that the incoming class will still be filled to capacity. Most students who are accepted to a highly selective school will attend, so where does this leave the wait-listed student? According to The National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), the average student's chance of being accepted from the waiting list was approximately one in five in 2002.
Encourage students to give serious consideration to other options. Richard Shaw, dean of undergraduate admissions and financial aid at Yale University, advises counselors to help students who are "sitting around and wringing their hands over [being wait-listed] . . . to celebrate the places they did get in and move on."
A student who is eager to attend a particular school may decide it's worth the time, effort, and anxiety to stay on the list. Share the Boosting Your Wait-List Chances tip sheet with these students—but make sure they know that fewer and fewer schools are accepting applicants from their waiting lists.
What you can do
Once your student has had a chance to come to terms with being wait-listed, take the following actions:
- Guide her to focus on her real choices: the places that have accepted her.
- If she does want to stay on the waiting list:
- Explain to her that colleges don't admit from the waiting list until the May 1 decision deadline has passed.
- Encourage her (because of this timeframe) to prepare to attend another school by filling out the paperwork and sending a deposit. (If she is accepted from the waiting list and decides to attend the waiting-list school, she will forfeit this deposit.)
Advising rejected students
In some ways, it is easier to help students who have been rejected outright. Although they have some decisions to make, they are not in a state of limbo. They know they have to seek an alternative to their first-choice school now.
Understanding the decision
Admissions officers at selective colleges readily admit that as many as two-thirds of the students they reject are fully capable of succeeding academically at their institutions. Unfortunately, it is often a matter of too much demand for too few places.
Understanding this reason for rejection can help students and their families better handle their disappointment. Pat Rambo, a college and career counselor at Springfield High School in Pennsylvania, says that when students realize that decisions are based predominantly on numbers during a particularly competitive year, and not necessarily on the merits of the application, it depersonalizes the decision, which helps them feel better.
What you can do
Margo McCoy Howe, a school counselor specialist at the College Board's National Office for School Counselor Advocacy in Washington, D.C., suggests the following ways to help students handle a college rejection:
- Listen to students; let them vent and acknowledge their feelings of disappointment.
- Help students refocus by pointing out that it's not the school that really matters, but the college experience.
- Point out that the experience they get at a different school that's a good fit may end up offering better opportunities.
- Explain that many factors besides what college a person attends lead to success in the real world.
- Lift their spirits by letting them know that you think the school that refused them is missing out on a great student.
- Explain that admissions trends are subject to variability and reflect institutional priorities; a rejection is not a personal indictment.
- Be enthusiastic about the other schools students have applied to, emphasizing that they, too, are good matches.
- Encourage students to consider offers they've received from other colleges and to select a school that excites them.
- Remind them that a focus on their academic work should continue into college.
Appealing a rejection
While it's extremely rare for a school to overturn its decision, you may recommend that the rejected student write a letter of appeal explaining why she deserves to be reconsidered. This action will give the student the peace of mind of knowing that she has done everything possible to make a case for herself.
Planning a transfer
Remind the student that she can try to transfer to the desired school from another college after a year or so, and explain that she can take steps now to make this easier. Advise her to do the following:
- Determine that the desired school accepts transfer credits for those courses taken at the college she will attend.
- Ensure that the school she will attend is a good fit academically.
- Enroll in courses in which she can excel.
- Take challenging courses.
- Work hard and get the best grades possible.
The parents' role
Let parents know that it's okay for them to feel disappointment, too, but that they should keep their emotions in check. "Inevitably, parents will hurt more than their child because they're powerless to make it better," says Cynthia Doran, director of college counseling at Oregon Episcopal School in Portland, Oregon. However, she adds, "[They] need to swing into being supportive parents rather than going into the depths of despair with [their] son or daughter."
For more advice for parents, see the article Wait-Listed? Rejected? Accepted? in the "For Parents" section of this website.