Colleges Dig Deeper Into Freshman Waiting Lists

Facing a shrinking pool of high school graduates and the frightening prospect of vacancies in the freshman class, many colleges and universities across the nation are dipping much deeper and later into their waiting lists of applicants than in any year in recent memory.

That has caused thousands of young people to happily forfeit May deposits at their second-choice school when a more desirable one suddenly offers admission now.

Even Stanford University, one of the most selective schools in the country, has accepted 200 students from its waiting list while in some recent years it took none. Meanwhile, less competitive schools like USC, fighting demographic trends and a widening price gap with public institutions, will have lots of space on registration day in September.

“I’m telling students they are lucky that this is the year they are applying to college,” said Jane McClure, a private admissions counselor in San Francisco. “It just seems looser than in the past.”

The difficult courtships between colleges and prospective freshmen usually are consummated, or ended in disappointment, by mid-May. But Hans Giesecke, an official at the Assn. of Independent California Colleges and Universities, explained: “In a year like this it stands to reason that some students probably will be jumping from school to school even in late August.” He described that as a chain-reaction, creating a series of openings down the ladder of perceived prestige.

In the past, some colleges used waiting lists as polite ways to say no to students who narrowly missed the first cut of acceptance or to fill in certain course majors or ethnic groups left with smaller than desired enrollments after some first-round choices decided not to attend. It was more fine-tuning than round-up.

The more aggressive use of waiting lists this year as colleges’ enrollment insurance certainly suited Stephen Darby, an 18-year-old football player from Bronxville, N.Y. He applied to 12 schools in the East, was rejected by two, accepted outright at seven and put on the waiting lists at three: Lehigh, Lafayette and Bucknell, all in Pennsylvania. In late April, Darby decided to enroll at St. Lawrence University in upstate New York.

Then in May, both Lehigh and Lafayette moved him from wait list limbo into acceptance and he sent a $300 deposit to Lafayette. More recently, Bucknell, his original first choice, wrote with good news. “My first reaction was to be upset because I wasn’t really thinking about Bucknell anymore. This just totally messed me up,” recalled Darby.

He finally chose Bucknell and forfeited his Lafayette deposit. Now, a bit dazed but philosophical, he said: “I think the schools played fairly with me. I understand what they are going through. They are trying to get the best students for their colleges.”

Some experts worry that students may be hurt by such last-minute changes. “Usually after May 1, they begin to accept their fate, write to their roommates, choose courses and do those things that are so very important for making a good transition to a college,” explained Katherine Kendall, a counselor in Beverly Hills. “Just about the time they buy into it, a letter comes and everything is thrown into a tizzy. For some kids, it is very, very hard.”

A Beverly Hills girl said being on the waiting list for the University of Pennsylvania was painful. She sent a deposit to Duke University in North Carolina and anxiously checked mail from Philadelphia. “It was so frustrating and so annoying,” recalled the student, who asked not to be identified. “You are waiting for something for so long. Then to be told to wait some more is an awful feeling when all your friends know where they are going to school.” To her delight, she finally got into Penn and is forsaking the $500 Duke deposit.

The colleges, on the other hand, are very worried about enrollment and the so-called “baby bust.” The U.S. Department of Education estimates that 2.6 million students graduated from high school this year, down from 2.8 million last year and 3.15 million in 1977. The downward trend is expected to continue until 1995, when children of baby boomers start to be college age.

For the last decade, many colleges and universities below the top tier of prestige coped by filling in with non-traditional students: older people and part-timers. That adult market is no longer expanding fast enough to cover other losses. Another trend, individual students applying to more colleges than in the past, made it harder for schools to figure out before summer how large their freshman class would be.

To be sure, remaining vacancies are not in the Ivy Leagues, at Stanford or the University of California. But even such august schools with legions of eager applicants have had to adjust. High school counselors say they have been surprised this year by the admission of some students to big-name schools that rejected similar students in past years.

UC, besieged with applicants seeking its relatively low-cost education, plans to offer fall enrollment in the next few weeks to some eligible students who previously were told space would not be available until winter. Stanford, with a 13% drop in applications from 1989, has gone deep into its waiting list, although William Tingley, associate dean of undergraduate admissions, described the difference between students admitted in April and those taken later from the waiting list as “fine hairline.”

The earthquake last fall caused major damage at Stanford and appears to have frightened off some potential out-of-state applicants there and at other California schools. And private colleges across the nation complain that delays this spring by the College Board service that figures scholarships may have scared some students away to public institutions.

The University of Notre Dame in Indiana took 200 from its wait list, 50 more than last year and a few in response to losing others who got into Stanford from a wait list, according to Notre Dame admissions director Kevin Rooney. “I think everyone has the sense this is a more fluid year,” Rooney said. “I don’t think there was a school in the country that wasn’t affected.”

The University of Pennsylvania’s dean of admissions, Willis J. Stetson, said that Ivy League school took 75 from its wait list, 10 more than last year. But more unusual was that Penn wait list decisions, usually settled in May, were not finalized until last week. The expected freshman class on average has slightly lower Scholastic Aptitude Test scores than last year: a still impressive 1290, down from 1300, out of a potential 1600 points. “Something has to be giving at most places,” Stetson said of the small SAT dip. “I don’t see how it can be any other way at any institutions if the number of applications has dropped.”

USC (where SAT totals average just below 1100) would have to dramatically lower its own admissions standards to ensure a freshman class as large as last year’s, officials say. But they say they would rather deal with the projected 12% drop in the number of freshmen, from 2,860 to about 2,500, and a resulting layoff of staff.

USC recently telephoned 3,000 accepted applicants who neither sent in deposits nor canceled. About 200 said they would attend USC.

In addition, the university is holding open its application process for both freshmen and transfers through the summer, although a late surge is unlikely. “I don’t see any way we can get to 2,700. We will be happy if we can enroll 2,500,” said Cliff Sjogren, USC dean of admissions.

In addition to demographics, a big reason for USC’s problem is the growing gap between the cost of education at USC and at a UC campus: $14,378 for USC undergraduate tuition and fees, not including room and board, in 1990-91 compared to $1,703 at a UC campus. Worsening matters, observers say, is that the USC admissions office has been in turmoil, with four deans in the last five years.

Certainly, USC is not alone in feeling an enrollment pinch. Northeastern University in Boston projects a 25% decrease in freshmen. Pace University in New York is expecting a 15% drop. University of the Pacific, in Stockton, 7%.

Most students affected by the changes don’t care about the causes. They’re just pleased to be applying to college in 1990.

One beneficiary of a wait list decision is Julie Harris, who graduated last week from Belmont High School in Los Angeles. She was planning to attend University of La Verne, within commuting distance of home. Then two weeks ago, Vassar College in New York called to offer admission from the wait list with the possibility of financial aid. She accepted.

“I think maybe somebody decided to go someplace else. That was probably it,” the future drama major said of the unexpected opening at Vassar. “It doesn’t matter. Just as long as I got in, I’m happy.”

Similarly, David Hatzfeld, a Philadelphia teen-ager, recently forfeited his deposit at Kalamazoo College in Michigan when Grinnell College in Iowa transferred him from its wait list to the acceptance pool.

“With a wait list, you are being told you can do the work but there are people who are better than you. It’s kind of a mixed message. So if you do get in, it’s all that much sweeter,” he said.