’Tis the waitlist season. So what should you not do after being waitlisted? If you’re a student who was recently placed on a college’s waitlist (or the parent of a student placed in limbo), we bet you’d have checked off at least one of the below items. Don’t do it!

Top 10 Things To NOT Do After Being Waitlisted

10. Don’t email an update to admissions that you’ve been named a National Merit Finalist. You’d be not so subtly conveying to admissions officers that you think they care about your PSAT score.

9. Don’t call the admissions office to find out why you didn’t get in outright. They don’t want to speak to you and you’re never going to get the real answer anyway.

8. Don’t send off a short note to admissions thinking you’ll send a longer note later. You should be reaching out once and you need to make that one time count.

7. Don’t pitch a tent outside their office. They don’t want to see you. And, frankly, it’s been done (hat tip to our late friend, former Yale admissions director Dick Moll’s story about a student who pitched a tent outside the Yale admissions office and fried bacon and eggs in the morning).

6. Don’t ask admissions if they’d be willing to interview you. They don’t want to interview you.

5. Don’t send them a cheesecake. This isn’t an episode of Golden Girls.

4. Don’t sit and wait to send a Letter of Continued Interest to a school that has waitlisted you until after you’ve heard from that institution days before. Admissions officers weren’t born yesterday. They’ll instinctually know you’re shopping for a better offer. They’re second banana.

3. Don’t heed the advice of your school counselor who suggests you should only write a Letter of Continued Interest to the school you most wish to attend. Every school that has waitlisted you that you’d prefer to attend over the school(s) at which you’ve earned admission should receive such a letter. Elite college admissions is a business. They’ve played games with you. It’s now your turn to fool each school into believing it’s your first choice.

2. Don’t update admissions officers on all the things you’ve achieved since you first applied. Yes, even if a school asks you for such updates, it’s an unlikely strategy to inspire an admissions officer to root for you. The Letters of Continued Interest of Ivy Coach’s students are not filled with updates.

1. If you receive a phone call from an unknown number during waitlist season, pick up! In our experience, students are typically accepted off waitlists by phone. And say yes right away (on the call!). You can always back out later if you’d like. But reserve your spot in the incoming class!

Turn Your Waitlist Spot into an Acceptance with the Right Letter

Interested in Ivy Coach’s assistance in crafting a powerful Letter of Continued Interest? If so, fill out our complimentary consultation form, indicate that your child’s been waitlisted, and we’ll be in touch to set up a call designed to answer questions about how we can help you beat the waitlist.

And if you’ve been waitlisted by multiple schools, know that many students work with us on a single Letter of Continued Interest. Armed with their own unique approach to the letter, they then change all the specifics we include for all subsequent schools to which they’re waitlisted on their own (and, this time, they know what actually counts as a specific — and it’s not classes or professor name drops). In this way, they’re literally firing on all cylinders through the waitlist process. When one school waitlists them, they send a letter. When the next school waitlists them, they send another letter. And the game goes on.