Ep.7/ College Admissions Decision Day
If you are wondering, “Did I make the cut?” College Admissions Decision Day has arrived! In this episode we will be explaining how to Navigate whether you were accepted, denied, or put on the waitlist
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The great day is here! You are finally receiving the answers you wanted and you might feel relieved. However, this moment can be very stressful as well because the outcome might not be what you were hoping for.
In this episode, Thomas shares tips for the decision day. What to do if you were denied? How to celebrate if you were admitted? And what does ‘waitlist’ actually mean? These are probably the three most common answers inside the letter in your hands. It’s also important to know how to navigate the next steps.
If you were admitted, it’s time to celebrate but it’s also time to be thoughtful about your colleagues and other students. If you were denied, don’t take it personally. If you were relocated to a waitlist, it’s time to analyze the situation… Tune in to learn more!
Key Highlights
No matter what the outcome is, remember there are many paths to get what you want.
With so many colleges reaching out, it’s important to analyze all your options.
At the end of the day, you can only go to one school.
See what makes sense financially.
Enjoy your education opportunity.
About Thomas
Thomas is a parent and alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania. After earning his MBA at the Wharton School in 2003, he moved to Silicon Valley. For three years, he was director of admissions and financial aid at Wharton School. He worked closely with admissions professionals, students, alumni, and professors to create the best possible MBA class.
Thomas has been an entrepreneur his entire life in the fields of finance, agriculture, wellness, and sporting goods. As the founder of Global Education Opportunities, he works with diverse and underserved communities to help them become successful college students. Thomas started the podcast Admittedly because he is passionate about demystifying the application process for parents and applicants.
Follow Admittedly on social media
TikTok: @admittedlypodcast
Instagram: @admittedlypodcast
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Hello, and welcome to the admittedly podcast. My name is Thomas Caleel. I'm the former director of MBA admissions and financial aid for my alma mater, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. In this podcast, I don't promise easy answers or quick fixes. But I will use my decades of experience to help you achieve your education goals. Now, let's get started.
Hello, and welcome to the deadly podcast. I'm your host, Thomas Caleel. And today we're going to be talking about that finish line. That great day when your email notification chimes, you look in your inbox and you see that your status has changed. It's exhilarating. It's terrifying. It's a culmination of weeks, months, years of hard work on your part. And your finger hovers over the trackpad. And you're ready to see what the decision is. There's three primary decisions that we can have, generally admit, deny, or waitlist. For those of you applying in college admissions to early action, early decision, there's also defer, and we'll talk about that a little bit later. But you see that email, you're probably getting several at a time. Ivy League schools generally release on the same day known as IV day. But you click, and up comes your portal. You click on the link to see that your status has changed.
And what happens? Well, typically three outcomes. Number one, you get maybe a splash of confetti, and the opening word is congratulations. And really, you don't read much after that. You did it! And congratulations are most definitely in order. You can celebrate, you can hug your friends and family who are there with you. It's a great time. You've earned this and you should just take a few minutes and really enjoy. Let it sink in. When you get your breathing back on, things have calmed down a little bit more. Read the letter. The letters, they are warm, they are wonderful. They really reinforce everything that you've done and congratulate you for all of your successes to date. And it's something that you've earned.
I would say, be careful about immediately going out and bragging about this on social media or texting your friends. Because some people are not going to get the same good news. And we want to be a little bit cautious about that and thoughtful about other people's feelings, but certainly enjoy it. Enjoy the moment it's yours.
I wouldn't at this immediate moment start worrying about your financial aid. Some schools will put financial aid awards in the letter, and if you are lucky enough to receive a scholarship or some kind of fellowship, congratulations. For others, maybe that's a next step in the process. And we'll cover that on another episode.
But for right now, start making a list of the schools you're admitted to, and certainly you know, any financial awards you've received, because you are going to need to come back to that later. Unless you have one clear school, that's your very first choice, and you've gotten into that. Because you're going to want to make some thoughtful decisions. You're gonna want to weigh a lot of factors, and not just leap at the first school that says yes.
And that is, by the way, a tactic that some schools are using more and more. They're releasing their decisions earlier. Especially positive ones, especially in demographics that they are actively trying to recruit. And the hope is that by giving you this good news early, they can start to just grab all of your attention. So it may be that their school was not your first overall choice, maybe it was your second or third or even fourth choice. But by giving you the decision early, letting you talk about it with friends and family, be excited about it, maybe they'll send you a t-shirt or a sweatshirt or a bumper sticker. Maybe they'll give you financial aid. And so it's something that becomes part of your process now and part of your psyche and something that you're thinking about very actively, and it can definitely influence you when it comes time to matriculate or enroll in your final school. And it's a yield management tool. It's wonderful. Yes, but again, we want to be clear eyed about this process. We want to make the best decision for you overall in the context of the next four years of your life and the rest of your life in general.
Now, the second outcome, of course, tells you that it was a very difficult year. They thank you for taking the time. They congratulate you on all your accomplishments, but unfortunately, there just was not room for you in the class. At this time, it is an absolutely crushing moment. You read that, the screen kind of goes out of focus for you a little bit, and your breath shortens.
And you start to ask all the questions why, why? What was not good enough? What could I have done better? What mistakes did I make? And I would caution you to breathe, breathe, stop, take a step back, think about what I said in an earlier episode. We talked about what the school needs at that particular point of time. And it's very important to keep in mind, these schools have 10s of 1,000s of applications for very, very few number of seats, the more selective the school, you know, some of the top programs will have 50,000-60,000 applications for maybe 1,000, or 1,500 spots in the class. So when you think about a class, there's so many demands being made by the university. Each of the academic departments is saying, we want more students in our discipline, the sports teams, the drama, the music, arts, everything, every single person and group and department in that university is lobbying and pressuring admissions and saying, “We want more, we want more, we want more.” And so don't take a denial as a condemnation of you and everything that you've accomplished.
I want you to think about it more in terms of, I just did not fit this year into the class that they were trying to build. Okay, if you took the same application, you applied 10 years in a row, you might get into that school 3,458 times. Alright, but maybe this is the one year that you didn't fit. Maybe they already had too many people with your specific skill set or qualification or way that you presented yourself. So it's very important to remember from an admissions officers standpoint, when you're making those final cuts, you're dealing with just truly exceptional candidates. Applicants that are going to go on and be successful and do amazing things no matter where they matriculate. And it may just be this year that there's not room for that student in the class, I can tell you that.
When I was running MBA Admissions at Wharton, people would say to me, oh, decision day, that must be the best day of the year. And honestly, it was one of the hardest. Because yes, I would get to the office at two, three in the morning, start making phone calls to Asia, and chase us around the world. And obviously, those calls are great. You call people, you tell them they're admitted. Many times I would have interviewed them or met them in some context during the application process. And it's just it, it's a wonderful feeling. It's wonderful to congratulate and welcome them and tell them how much you want them to be a part of the class and the community, and what an amazing experience it was getting to know them through the application process.
But it's also immensely painful, because you also think about those incredible applicants who you just did not have room for and who you argued over with the team in final committee. But sometimes you just couldn't make it work. And you know, that they'll go on and they'll have great opportunities that other top programs. You know that in your heart, but really part of me at least, and I know for my team, every decision day, there was that letdown, there was that sadness. Because there were so many amazing people who you just wanted to be there next year, who couldn't.
So what I'm saying really, again, is, don't take it personally. Right? Yeah, is it disappointing? Absolutely. Feel those feelings. You know, process those feelings, move through that. But realize that there are many, many paths to get to where you want. And I know that during the admissions process, a lot of times you can get fixated on a school and think if I can go to school, “A” all my problems will be solved. It's a perfect school for me. And when that perfect school for you sometimes will say we understand we’re your perfect school, but you're not what we need at this point in time is crashing.
But what I can tell you, over decades of doing this is that students go on to other schools. Other great programs that want them, that value them, that see them for who they are. And they go on and they have exceptional experiences. And look, if you don't get into a school, any school that you really want, you get into some other perfectly good schools. Go there. Have a great freshman year and work hard.
Listen to my episode on transfer admissions. And feel free to try again to transfer out into what I'll refer to as a dream school or a dream program. Because especially on the undergraduate side, you know, there is that option to transfer, it's becoming more and more popular. So obviously, the odds of being successful decrease now every year as people are trying to second guess and game the system a little bit and make that hop after their freshman year.
But I think, you know, also keep in mind, are you chasing a dream? Are you chasing a reality? Are you truly not happy where you are? Because being happy at a school and digging in, and working hard, can get you to an exceptional graduate program, or exceptional work and career opportunity, and you can go forward from there.
So it's not the end of the world. I know, it seems like it at the moment, but it's not the end of the world. You know, again, have your list marked down. Your wins your losses. Take a breath, and then deal with all of your options.
At the end, a lot of students will come to me and they will ask me about appealing a decision. You know, what I can say is that admissions professionals pride themselves on really doing a thorough job on your application. They will review all of the information that you provided and generally make, what I believe is a fair decision. However, you might discover that your counselor failed to send in a grade term, a grade report, or a midterm report or something of that nature. Or maybe you had a big change in your status, academic or otherwise, you can appeal. I would say the success rate of appealing is very, very, very low. But if you feel like you have truly new information, or some critical piece of information, through no fault of your own was not made available to the admissions committee, you can try, but I really wouldn't pin my hopes on that.
So we've done admin, we've done deny, and then we have probably, I think, the most painful decision and truly a more painful decision even than deny, and that is a waitlist. It's this weird purgatory, this limbo, right? Because you're not in, but you're also not out. And the waitlist is a very opaque thing. And the waitlist is a very opaque creation. It is something that you have no visibility into. You have no idea where you are on the waitlist, some schools will not even rank a waitlist. They're waiting to see what their matriculation numbers are like. But how you handle the waitlist can make or break your final outcome. So I'm going to talk about this for a few minutes.
So first of all, breathe. I know it's very common theme in this episode, but I just want you to breathe. Okay, once you've kind of calmed down and processed things and you're ready, sit down and read the letter very, very carefully. Okay, there is nothing in that letter that is not important. It will tell you, do you have an opportunity to submit an update or additional information? If so, where do you do that? Do they want an additional letter sent in? Do they want you to update in a very specific text box in your applicant portal? Is there a deadline by which you need to send in your decision? These are all very, very important things now.
If the school right says you're on the waitlist and you have three weeks, four weeks, to send us your decision and an update. Okay? What a lot of people do is they rush. They say, “Okay, I gotta get this in right now. Because the sooner I get it in, the more interested I look.” And truly, that is not the case, right? Because what the universities are doing, as we've discussed before, is universities are doing what's best for the university. And what's best for the university is they need to see what their matriculation numbers look like. They have to see what their class looks like, once the matriculation deadline has passed, which is usually in early May. Then and only then will they turn to the waitlist and say okay, now we need to fill some holes in the class, right? And we need to start going to the waitlist.
So what I want you to do is I want you to take your time. I want you to read the letter. I want you to, if you have the opportunity to provide an update, provide that update. Okay, but be very clear. Don't just regurgitate what you said in the application. Take them through things that have changed. Talk to them about your academic performance. Talk to them about why during this process, and since you last spoke with them either in an interview or through an essay, you have become even more convinced that this is the best school for you. And very important, this is not a love letter, don't tell the school that they're your favorite place, and you really love everything about them, right? Because that's trite and quite frankly, meaningless. As an admissions officer, you really want to read something that shows thoughtfulness that shows, okay, I see my path at this school, I see why I want to be part of this community, I see specific teachers courses, opportunities that speak directly to me, and will enable me to achieve my goals and dreams that can be inside the classroom, outside the classroom, things that you've learned during the admissions process, if they've come into very, very sharp focus for you, you can say, “Look, you know, I spent time on campus after my interview, and I met these people, I spoke with this professor, I spoke with this admissions committee member, this student, and it changed my perspective of the school and really got me excited in these ways.” Okay?
We want to be politely persistent here, because you're being evaluated, apart from all the other metrics on something called judgment. All right. So the student, for example, who submits their application with eight letters of recommendation from every random alumni that their parents know, that shows bad judgment, right? But if you're on the waitlist, for example, and you have a recommender who can really attest to change growth, or provide a new perspective, don't just get another teacher to write a letter about what a good student you are. If you have somebody who can provide a unique perspective, you may want to consider having them send that recommendation directly to the school. But keep in mind, if you are exercising poor judgment in the eyes of the admissions committee, that can really, really backfire, right? Nobody wants to be the student who has the notes stuffed in their file. I'm dating myself here, because everything's online now. But the notes placed in their file, saying, oh, this person calls and they show up, and they're just being persistent and annoying. And they sent in for additional recommendations and a 10 page treatise on why they want to be here. At that point, it's very easy just to get knocked out of contention.
And keep in mind, too, that, especially in the more highly selective schools, where the yield rates, right, which is the number of people who accept the offers, given, the yield rate is very, very, very high. And so it may only be that three, four or five spots open each year. It might be that no spots open each year, right? Because when a school admits a class, they over admit the number of students they want, because they account for what they hope is a steady attrition, right? So if you want 100 students, and you're highly selective, you might give out 105 offers. But what happens sometimes is that all 105 students say yes. And in that case, not only you're not going to the waitlist, but now you've a problem because you've over matriculated your class other years. It might be that only 90 students accept your offer, and so now you've got 10 spots to go to the waitlist. So keep in mind that a lot of the waitlist movement is completely out of the hands of the school. And so you don't want to be overly persistent or annoying on something that the school really doesn't have any influence over, especially until the matriculation deadline.
So in short, you get your decision, I want you to breathe. I want you to celebrate your accomplishments, even if you are not successful, and I want you really to keep this in perspective. Because these decisions are, yes, very important in your life, but they're one step in your life. If you get into your top school, congratulations, I really wish you all the best. I think that's fantastic. And I know that some of you are just going to have tremendous amounts of great choices ahead of you.
I remember working with a young lady several years ago, she actually ended up being interviewed by CNN because she got into every Ivy League school, and I think got about 16 admin letters overall from top programs across the United States. And that was a wonderful thing. She was truly an exceptional student and human.
But remember, you only need one. You can only go to one school. Alright, so you want that one school that fits best with you where you're going to be most successful and you can have the greatest impact and enjoy your education opportunity.
Good luck in the coming days and weeks. I know this is a very stressful time. I can only tell you that It's almost over, and once you have your list, then you can sit down with your parents, your counselors, your advisors, whoever it is that you trust, and start to make the right decisions around, “what's my best opportunity education wise?” “What's my best opportunity financially?” Right? “What is my best return on investment?” For those of you that live in states like Texas or California, there are very, very strong community college programs that will dramatically reduce the cost of attending college and allow you to in your junior year slot right into the large prestigious state schools and some other affiliated schools.
So be smart about your choices. Celebrate your accomplishments, and I wish you all the best in the coming decision season. Thank you.
Thank you for joining us today. Please take a moment to subscribe to the admittedly podcast and download this episode. I welcome you to share your thoughts and questions with me. You can find us on social media at admittedly podcast. I look forward to continuing our journey together.
