Oberlin released its admissions decisions for the fall on March 19. Most colleges should release their admissions decisions by the end of March, so if you’re still waiting to hear from some schools, it shouldn’t be too much longer. For the schools that you’ve been admitted to — congratulations! My colleague Josh just wrote a great post about how to engage with Oberlin and decide which school is right for you for the fall — check it out!
But I’m here to talk about something less exciting, but all too real for many applicants: the waitlist.
Oftentimes, a school just doesn’t have enough space for all of the qualified applications it receives. This was definitely the case with Oberlin this year — we received a record number of applications for the fall. A waitlist offer means that the school is interested in you, but unfortunately didn’t have enough room to offer you a spot in the first round. If enough admitted students decide to enroll somewhere else, Oberlin will start making offers of admission to students on the waitlist.
Will we admit students off the waitlist this year? Probably. How many? The best guess I can give is “some.” At this point, it’s just too soon to tell. If you’ve been waitlisted somewhere, know that most schools won’t start going to the waitlist until later in April at the earliest, once admitted students start making final decisions about where they are going to enroll. A majority of our admitted students wait until the very last minute to tell us whether or not they’re coming, and we can’t do anything with the waitlist until we know how much space we have to work with.
If you are waitlisted and are still interested in Oberlin, do the following:
- Tell us that you want to be on the waitlist. You should have received instructions from us that ask you to fill out a form confirming your continued interest in Oberlin. Please do this to let us know that you want to stay in the running.
- Make sure your application is complete. If your file happens to be missing anything (maybe the CSS Profile or a second letter of recommendation), get that to us ASAP. We will not offer admission to a student with an incomplete application.
- (Optional) Tell us why you’re interested in Oberlin. Filling out the form in Step #1 is procedural — it’s just a “yes/no” question on a form. If you want to give us more information about you, such as an update about what you’ve been doing since you submitted your application or details on why you want to come to Oberlin, send an email to your admissions counselor (you can find your regional counselor here) or to college.admissions@oberlin.edu.
- Check your email regularly. If we have a spot for you, this is how we’ll reach out to let you know.
If you don’t want to be on our waitlist (or you change your mind after saying “yes”), that’s okay too! Just please let us know : )
You’ve spent years preparing to apply to college and then months waiting to receive your decisions. For those of you who have to wait just a little bit longer, know that we understand this is a difficult process. If you have questions or want to talk to someone about your application, reach out to our office. We will also be in touch as soon as we have any updates to share.
