Waitlist Admission Rates

For waitlisted students, it can be hard to judge just how much of a chance they have of getting accepted off the waitlist. Data around waitlist acceptances can be scarce, especially as waitlists at top colleges grow and more and more schools become less transparent about their admissions statistics. The college counselors at IvyWise, however, have dug into the data and have some insight into waitlist admission rates. 

What Are My Chances of Getting Off the Waitlist?

According to recent data from the National Association of College Admissions Counseling, colleges on average admit 20% of students off the waitlist. At the most selective institutions, that figure was 7%. In reality, since waitlist decisions can come as late as weeks before the start of the fall semester, families usually don’t have a good sense of how many students are admitted off waitlists each year. 

Recent Waitlist Admission Rates

Waitlist admission rates can vary from school to school and even year to year, especially as colleges have seen record-breaking application numbers over the past few years. Here is a list of colleges and universities and their waitlist admit rates for the Class of 2026: the most recent, complete data that schools currently have available. 

School	Waitlisted	Accepted from Waitlist	Waitlist Acceptance Rate
American University	2,086	88	4.22%
Amherst College	902	36	3.99%
Babson College	1,286	0	0.00%
Bates College	1,264	0	0.00%
Bowdoin College	Unknown	10	Unknown
Boston University	5,899	3	0.05%
Brown University	Unknown	15	Unknown
Bucknell University	1,544	10	0.65%
Carleton College	591	30	5.08%
Carnegie Mellon University	4,652	43	0.92%
Case Western Reserve University	6,056	436	7.20%
Claremont McKenna College	538	11	2.04%
Colorado College	193	2	1.04%
Cornell University	5,531	260	4.70%
Dartmouth College	1,785	41	2.30%
Davidson College	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
Emory University – Emory Campus	3,388	107	3.16%
Georgia Tech	4,903	41	0.84%
Georgetown University	1,804	40	2.22%
Grinnell College	1,426	58	4.07%
Hamilton College	1,568	0	0.00%
Harvard University	Unknown	36	Unknown
Harvey Mudd College	419	17	4.06%
Haverford College	1,067	7	0.66%
Johns Hopkins University	2,358	0	0.00%
Lehigh University	2,499	93	3.72%
Middlebury College	2,215	12	0.54%
MIT	763	0	0.00%
Olin College of Engineering	48	28	58.33%
Pitzer College	271	1	0.36%
Pomona College	614	13	2.12%
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute	1,129	2	0.18%
Smith College	1,132	37	3.27%
Stanford University	457	8	1.75%
Swarthmore College	Unknown	0	0.00%
Trinity University	603	49	8.13%
Tulane University	2,271	3	0.13%
UCLA	11,169	367	3.29%
University of California – Berkeley	4,655	44	0.95%
University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill	5,392	383	7.10%
University of Richmond	654	0	0.00%
University of Virginia	Unknown	6	Unknown
Vanderbilt University	Unknown	221	Unknown
Vassar College	638	32	5.02%
Wake Forest University	Does not release waitlist data	Unknown	Unknown
Washington and Lee University	1,029	11	1.10%
Wellesley College	1,304	44	3.37%
Wesleyan University	1,557	81	5.20%
William and Mary	2,042	4	0.20%
Williams College	850	0	0.00%
Yale University	780	9	1.15%

Not getting into your top-choice or “dream” school can be a big disappointment, but it can narrow the pool and allow you to focus on the other great schools where you were admitted. That said, a sense of uncertainty can come into play when you’re waitlisted, especially with enrollment deadlines right around the corner. At IvyWise we offer Waitlist Consultation services to help you decide what steps to take next to have the best chances of admission and decide where to enroll.