How They Choose from the Wait List
How do you choose from the wait listed candidates? Do you choose people who will fit better at JHU than others; people who show the most interest, people who satisfy spaces open in certain academic areas, or a mix of all of this?
Any student on the wait list who chooses to remain on the wait list will have a chance for admission if spaces in the class become available and admission off the wait list will depend on how many admitted students accept their offer from Hopkins. The main thing to note is that if we decide to use the wait list this year EVERY applicant who chose to remain on the wait list will be re-reviewed for admission. When re-reviewing students for admission off the wait list our priority will always be quality of the student and what will they contribute to Hopkins, but we may also have to factor in additional concerns dependent on the make-up of the enrolling class. It is that last note that I will try to expand on.
If the decision is made to select students for admission off the wait list than a determination is made that we have not hit our targets for the enrolling class. This means that we have not enrolled the set number of students we want to enroll. Removing students off the wait list helps us make our yield number but also helps us make sure there is diversity in our class in every way shape and form.
It might be decided that when selecting students off the wait list we specifically want to target one area of academic interest … or we need to take students with no financial need because we have no aid … or we want students with a specific demographic breakdown — it all depends and unfortunately until we see the make-up of the class of 2013 we can not make a determination. Remember there is no guarantee that one will be admitted off the wait list just because they are a strong applicant, because there is no guarantee that we will need to take students off the wait list. Interest does matter but it is not the driving force of our decision making process.
The above is from the blog of one of the admissions officers at Johns Hopkins University.
