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% |
| Barnard College | 1,597 | 66 | 4.13% |
| 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% |
| Caltech | 167 | 13 | 7.78% |
| 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% |
| Colgate University | 2,146 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Colorado College | 193 | 2 | 1.04% |
| Columbia University | Does not release waitlist data | Unknown | Unknown |
| 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% |
| George Washington University | 2,014 | 1 | 0.05% |
| 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% |
| Howard University | 2,931 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Johns Hopkins University | 2,358 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Lehigh University | 2,499 | 93 | 3.72% |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | 763 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Miami University – Ohio | 376 | 257 | 68.35% |
| Middlebury College | 2,215 | 12 | 0.54% |
| New York University | Does not release waitlist data | Unknown | Unknown |
| Northwestern University | Unknown | 83 | Unknown |
| Olin College of Engineering | 48 | 28 | 58.33% |
| Pepperdine University | 987 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Pitzer College | 271 | 1 | 0.36% |
| Pomona College | 614 | 13 | 2.12% |
| Princeton University | 1,348 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Reed College | 1,675 | 76 | 4.54% |
| Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | 1,129 | 2 | 0.18% |
| Rice University | 3,112 | 0 | 0.00% |
| Santa Clara University | 2,467 | 8 | 0.32% |
| Sarah Lawrence College | 436 | 32 | 7.34% |
| 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% |
| Tufts University | 1,328 | 183 | 13.78% |
| Tulane University | 2,271 | 3 | 0.13% |
| UCLA | 11,169 | 367 | 3.29% |
| University of California – Berkeley | 4,655 | 44 | 0.95% |
| University of California – Irvine | Does not release waitlist data | Unknown | Unknown |
| University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill | 5,392 | 383 | 7.10% |
| University of Pennsylvania | 2,508 | 147 | 5.86% |
| 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% |
| Washington University in St. Louis | 3,447 | 168 | 4.87% |
| 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.
