“‘Wait it out,’” Taber Cannon ’27 recalled their college counselor saying. “‘Wait it out, you’ll see.’”
At the time, in mid-May 2023, Cannon — who is a video staffer at The Daily — was on the waitlist for seven schools, including their top choices of Harvard, Duke and Stanford. They had committed to Colby College on May 1, National College Decision Day, but said he was “basically on edge the entire time.”
Gradually, the week of May 10, phone calls and emails started to roll in. Hamilton College, Tufts University and Swarthmore College — waitlists were beginning to shift and Cannon’s options were increasing.
On May 13, as Cannon stepped onto the 4 Train on their way home from school in New York City, they opened an “Update to Applicant Portal” to confetti.
Each year, Stanford offers around 1% of the applicant pool a place on the waitlist, according to the Admissions Office website. In recent years, around 0.1% of applicants are accepted from the waitlist, or around 1% of waitlisted applicants.
While admitted students are expected to commit to a college by May 1, Stanford may notify candidates on the waitlist of their decision up until July 1. Stanford’s waitlist is not ranked.
Rohan Bhowmik ’27 had already been committed to Columbia University for over three months when he was notified that he was accepted off of Stanford’s waitlist at the end of June.
At that point, it was so late that he had “forgotten about [being on the waitlist].”
“It kind of threw a wrench in my initial expectations of what my next four years could be like,” Bhowmik said.
Following the disruption of in-person learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, many students admitted into the Class of 2024 deferred their acceptance until the 2021-2022 school year. As a result, many more students were admitted from the waitlist.
In comparison to other schools which request waitlisted applicants to send letters of continued interest or other supplementary materials, Stanford only asks that students accept their place on the waitlist. Applicants can provide “brief updates” to their application using the Waitlist Response Form.
Bhowmik said he did not add much to his application, and just expressing his desire to be close to family back home in the Bay Area. “I thought that at this point, what mattered wasn’t really academics anymore, but more of motivation.”
Cannon, on the other hand, said they submitted a number of awards to their application update form, including from choir, Scholastic Awards and Model United Nations, as well as a theater project.
Faiza Ashar ’27, who is a Daily staffer, was committed to the University of Southern California (USC) when she was accepted off of Stanford’s waitlist in mid-May. She said that she was surprised that all she had to do was fill out the brief form.
“Obviously, the waitlist process is different for everyone and it’s very mysterious,” Ashar said. “There’s not a lot of information on it.”
On the question of what Stanford looks for from its pool of waitlisted applicants, University spokesperson Luisa Rapport directed The Daily to the Admissions Office’s website.
“We look for students who will make a strong contribution to the Stanford community by demonstrating intellectual vitality and academic leadership, qualities not entirely captured by grade point averages and test scores,” the website reads. “Because of the number of exceptional students who apply to Stanford, there are unfortunately many top students for whom we simply do not have room.”
Ashar said she hoped waitlisted applicants would not lose hope.
“I know you’re on the waitlist and you’re feeling very anxious about it and you feel like you need to email everyone in the whole world, but it’ll work out in the end,” Ashar said.