If you find yourself on a business school’s waitlist, the first thing to remember is this: Being waitlisted is not the same as being rejected. It means that you’ve shown the adcom that you qualify for the program, and that’s something to celebrate!
However, it also means that you have not yet been accepted, so this is not a time for rash decisions. You need to approach the situation strategically and effectively, and knowing what doesn’t work is as important as knowing what does. In this post, I address the most common mistakes waitlisters make that ultimately ruin their chances of admittance – and the right moves to make instead.
I’ve spent more than 25 years as a director of admissions and recruiting, and advised thousands of MBA applicants, some of whom were waitlisted. I have also spoken with admissions staff at other schools to learn about their waitlist policies. Most importantly, I have seen through my candidates’ experiences, and those of many other applicants with whom I have talked, which tactics are effective and which ones aren’t.
Before I dive into discussing applicants’ most common waitlist mistakes, let’s identify which category the school that waitlisted you falls into.
The Three Kinds of Waitlisting Schools
Schools fall into three broad categories in terms of how they handle their waitlisted applicants. Be aware that schools can change their policies from year to year and sometimes within the course of an application cycle. If you’re not sure which category your waitlisting school falls into, contact the admissions office and ask. (For the rest of this post, I will refer to these different types of schools by the acronyms introduced.)
Group 1: Don’t call us; we’ll call you (DCU).
These schools strongly discourage any kind of contact from the waitlisted applicant. They only thing they want to know is whether you want to remain on the waitlist. They are busy reviewing applications and letters of support, so they do not have time to look at new materials or have long conversations with you.
Group 2: Show me you love me (SMULM).
Many schools fall into this category. These programs want you to keep in touch and demonstrate your continued interest while providing new information that adds to their knowledge of you. However, not even a school that wants to be courted likes being pestered, so even for SMULM schools, you should not call daily, waste their time with long-winded missives, or take other actions that might cause them to question your judgment.
Group 3: Coy (COY)
These are the schools that say they don’t want additional contact from waitlisted applicants (like DCU schools), but they do want to know about certain developments. They’re a bit insincere in saying, “Don’t call us,” but they’re certainly not as welcoming to additional input as SMULM schools. Generally speaking, small changes to your profile such as a change of address or a new manager in your same job would not be significant enough to contact the adcom about; the update must be something that really adds value to your candidacy.
Now, on to the mistakes.
Mistake #1: Ignoring the instructions you receive from the school
Whatever your waitlisting school’s instructions are, you should follow them meticulously. This means that if your waitlist letter indicates that the adcom is concerned about your below-average GMAT score, you need to take steps to allay that concern. Or if the adcom suggests in your waitlist letter that you take a calculus course, you don’t go skiing instead. If the letter says that the adcom doesn’t want to hear from you, you don’t start calling them once a week. Going against what the school advises or requests simply sends the adcom a loud and clear message that you do not follow instructions.
The right move is to do whatever the school outlines in the correspondence telling you that you have been waitlisted. School instructions generally fall into two categories:
- Contact with the school while on the waitlist
- Weaknesses in your profile
Contact with the School
You need to fully comply with the school’s instructions about the types and level of contact it is open to. This is easy if you are waitlisted by a DCU or SMULM school. If they say to contact the waitlist manager, contact them! Find out if there is anything you can do to improve your chances of moving from the waitlist to the accepted list. Ask about the program’s waitlist procedure and when and how frequently it is reviewed and culled.
If you are dealing with a COY school, the situation is more complex and nuanced. You should certainly follow the adcom’s directions regarding contact, but you also want to convey certain messages. Just be careful not to overdo it. Let the school know about any significant developments. If you’re not sure whether something is important enough to merit an email or letter, you can contact the admissions office or attend one of the school’s online events to ask. (If you are working with an Accepted consultant, you can of course ask them.)
Weaknesses in Your Profile
Having an adcom tell you outright what you need to improve in your candidacy is pure gold (and almost as rare). You know precisely where you should focus your efforts, both in hopes of getting accepted from the waitlist and in case you need to reapply later. I’ll go into more detail about what exactly you can do in this situation in my discussion of Mistake #6, but for now, just know that constructively responding to school feedback shows the adcom that you are committed to self-improvement and are serious about the school.
Mistake #2: Being modest about recent achievements
This is not the time for false modesty, real modesty, or anything in between. Put humility on hold – temporarily. (Just remember that arrogance is always out of place.)
The right move in this situation is to convince the school that you are a new and improved applicant.
Show the adcom that your candidacy is even stronger than when you applied. Give the school more reasons to select you by informing them of recent achievements, initiatives, and success stories.
Let SMULM schools know about anything of interest. Accomplishments, promotions, increases in responsibility (even if not accompanied by a formal promotion), initiatives, community service, multicultural exposure, new test scores or quant classes taken, and personal achievements (e.g., completing your first marathon, performing in Europe) all merit an update.
However, you shouldn’t lump all your latest updates together into a single email/letter that you send the school once every two months. Instead, share them via more frequent, shorter updates that will keep your name in front of the adcom’s eyes and continually remind them that you are a growing, dynamic individual. That said, take care not to waste the adcom’s time with updates that don’t enhance your profile in any way. And don’t call the admissions office daily. Again, if you aren’t sure whether a development warrants an update, contact the admissions office or attend an online event to ask, or seek guidance from your Accepted consultant.
For COY and DCU schools, you will need to be more circumspect and rely on letters of support from your friends, acquaintances, and colleagues to convey the information you want the school to know. I’ll discuss this tactics further later on in this post.
Mistake #3: Hiding your genuine interest in the school
You probably discussed your reasons for wanting to attend the school in in your essays and perhaps your interview. Or maybe you aren’t actually sure why you want to attend the school. Or you might have been rejected everywhere else, so this is your last hope. There’s no point in elaborating on your interest, right? Wrong.
The right move here is to reiterate for the adcom that you believe the school is the best one to help you achieve your goals.
How your qualifications compare to those of your peers is a primary consideration in admissions, but your “fit” with the school is another major factor. The adcom wants to know that you will do well at their school, not just in terms of academics but also with respect to the school’s culture and values. The last thing any school wants is to admit someone who will drop out – or graduate and later bad-mouth the program.
The adcom also wants to know that their program supports your goals for two reasons:
- If the school’s program and strengths support your goals, you’ll have an easier time getting a job. When a higher percentage of students have jobs at graduation, the school looks better both overall and in the rankings.
- The more the program supports your goals, the more likely you are to enroll, which would make the school’s “yield” go up, or at least not go down. (“Yield” refers to the percentage of accepted applicants who matriculate. It plays a significant role in admissions and is used as a factor in rankings. Yield is one measure of a school’s competitiveness and desirability.)
So, for a host of reasons, it behooves you to demonstrate your fit with the school, repeatedly and in a variety of ways. One way to do so while on the waitlist is by visiting the school. If you haven’t toured the campus, attended a class, or taken advantage of whatever else the program provides prospective students (e.g., online events, student admissions ambassadors), do so now, if at all feasible. Doing so is a concrete demonstration of interest and can give you material you can include in an update about how the visit, event, or conversation reinforced your interest in the school. If you have already visited, consider doing a second visit or exploring another way of connecting with the school and its community.
Always highlight your fit in your letters and updates to SMULM schools. Relate your experiences and achievements to your reasons for wanting to attend the school. Take the opportunity to discuss that relationship and reassert your enthusiasm for the program – clearly conveying that you truly want to attend and will matriculate.
Mistake #4: Not seeking expressions of support
Now is not the time to sit around, hoping people will offer to help you.
The right move is to actively solicit expressions of support from your friends, acquaintances, and colleagues – aka your “fan club.”
Take the initiative so that the school receives a steady stream of substantive recommendations, either written or oral. Each one should add information about your qualifications (preferably offering new material or a new perspective on material you’ve already provided), highlight your fit with the program, and endorse your candidacy.
At an SMULM school, your fan club is helpful, but it can be critical at DCU and COY schools for one simple reason: Your fan club is not bound by the schools’ instructions. They haven’t been told, “Don’t call us. We’ll call you.” In particular, alumni and students of your waitlisting school can attest to your fit and mention your recent achievements in their letters of support, thus giving the school – which would otherwise remain regrettably ignorant – more reasons to admit you.
(Although your fan club isn’t bound by the school’s instructions, if any of your waitlisting schools say that they don’t want letters, be sure to respect this preference. Contact your waitlisting school to learn its specific policy. If a school is not open to such letters, don’t submit them.)
Let’s take a closer look at the members of your fan club.
- A+ Fans
The best fans know you well, have worked with you, and are students at or recent alumni of your waitlisting school. They can attest to your strengths and accomplishments and reinforce that you have the attributes the school values by drawing from personal experience and using examples.
- People with knowledge of the program
This group primarily includes students and recent alumni. For instance, if your cousin’s girlfriend earned an MBA from the school, contact your cousin, tell them about your waitlist news, and ask whether their girlfriend could help you out with a letter of support. Then meet your newfound supporter and tell her what you have been up to, emphasizing recent events and experiences that are not yet a part of your file. Give her your resume/CV, a copy of your application, and a synopsis of what you would like her to spotlight.
- People who know you well, either from work or from a community service/nonprofessional setting
Peers or supervisors can submit additional letters of support for you, and your primary recommenders can update their recommendations with more recent material. If you are involved in a community service organization, sports group, club, church, political organization, or trade group, ask someone from this part of your life to write a letter of support. If you are applying to a deferred admissions MBA program, a professor you know well could be a good choice.
These people will probably know less about the school you’re waitlisted at than the students or recent alumni, so be sure to offer them some guidance with respect to the school’s values and the qualities you would like them to highlight. These recommenders will usually be able to comment more on your interpersonal skills than on your academic qualifications, and that’s fine.
On the other hand, who should never contact a school for you, even if they really want to help? Your parents, your grandparents, the neighbor you babysat for, and your high school teachers.
Submitting Letters of Support
If you have received instructions on how and to whom you should direct correspondence, follow those instructions. Be sure to pass these instructions along to any supporters who will be writing or calling on your behalf.
People who have connections at the school should send their letters to their connections and cc the admissions office or waitlist manager. If your supporters are more comfortable making a phone call, that works, too. They will know better than you how to use their network. If a very important graduate of the school calls or writes a letter for you, your application might be noted as “Special interest,” though this will not guarantee that you’ll be accepted. The schools’ top priority is having a class of high-quality students who can manage the demands of their program – not appeasing alumni.
Mistake #5: Planning a one-time deluge of correspondence… followed by deafening silence
By now, I’m sure you realize that passivity while on the waitlist is a recipe for rejection. So, you might be itching to flood the adcom with follow-up materials, especially if you are targeting an SMULM school. Resist that urge! You don’t want to inundate the school with mail and then disappear or go totally silent.
The right move is to plan a campaign of steady, substantive contact.
You want to maintain contact, demonstrate interest, and keep your name in front of the adcom in a constructive and positive manner. Pursue the sweet spot between poisonous passivity and nagging nuisance.
Depending on what time of year it is and what’s going on in your life, contacting your waitlisting school roughly once a month is a good guideline. If you are waitlisted early – let’s say in November – your correspondence initially will be less frequent than if you are waitlisted in March. Waitlists tend to shrink much more quickly as the application season rolls on.
However, if you know for sure when your school will be culling its waitlist, such as right after deposits are due from accepted students, you might want to submit an additional letter or update just before then.
Here are a few sample schedules for hypothetical applicant profiles. You probably won’t match any of them exactly, but they should give you an idea of different factors to consider in developing your waitlist campaign.
Sample #1
Alice is waitlisted at an SMULM school in December. She has great stats, but has worked as a programmer with little opportunity for leadership and almost no international exposure. However, she recently became a team lead and has taken the initiative to raise money at her church for victims of a recent natural disaster in Asia. As part of her new responsibilities at work, she will be interfacing with programmers in other countries. The following table outlines her plan:
| ActionDate* | TargetDate** | Action |
| Jan. 2 | Send the school a letter gratefully accepting a spot on the waitlist. Update the school about new responsibilities and church initiative. Inquire about ways to improve profile. Reiterate reasons for wanting to attend. | |
| Jan. 3 | Jan. 15 | Ask boss to send a letter of support confirming new responsibilities and qualifications. |
| Jan. 15 | Feb. 11 | Ask Harry (who graduated from the school) to write a letter of support. |
| Jan. 15 | Contact the school about visiting in February or March. If a virtual visit is the only practical option, make a list of remote events to participate in. | |
| Feb.March | Visit the school, either in person or virtually. Meet with students. Attend class. Take a tour. | |
| Feb.March | Send thank-you notes to people met/spoken with. | |
| March 1 | Write the adcom to highlight ways in which the visit/virtual event confirmed interest in the school. | |
| March 7 | March 21 | Ask minister to write a letter of support referencing work in the church. |
| April 1 | Write the school to offer update regarding the success of community service project and the challenges of working with people from different cultures. | |
| April 15 | May 1 | Ask a team member to write a letter of support focusing on interpersonal skills. |
* Date applicant acts
** Target date for others to carry out request
Alice is accepted on May 10!
Sample #2
Bob is waitlisted on March 15 at a COY school. He served as captain of his NCAA team, participated actively in his fraternity, and worked part-time. His grades show that he didn’t spend much time on his studies: 2.8 GPA. His work experience is strong: he worked for four years at a Big-4 consulting firm and has been a team lead on engagements in the States and abroad. He also serves on the board of a foundation he founded to help people suffering from a rare hearing disorder that afflicts his mother. He has a 730 GMAT score, evenly balanced. His grades are clearly his Achilles heel. As a result, he has taken stats and calculus in fall and spring semesters at a local school. He earned an A in calculus and has gotten A grades on his stats tests in the course he’s currently taking.
| ActionDate | TargetDate | Action |
| March 16 | Follow instructions for informing the school about remaining on waitlist. | |
| March 16March 20 | April 1 | Talk to supervisor about writing a letter of support. Contact friend who is a student at the school to request a letter of support.Check out online events for waitlist applicants and attend, if possible. |
| April 10 | Contact point person at the school via an online forum to ask whether academic news is something they would want to know about. Answer: Yes. | |
| April 15 | Send one-page letter to adcom informing them of academic progress. | |
| May 1 | May 15 | Consider visiting the school again, if feasible.* |
| May 1 | May 15 | Talk to the foundation’s CEO about sending a letter of support. |
| May 21 | Send in the requested update. | |
| May 21 | June 1 | Ask a teammate to send a letter of support focusing on teamwork and leadership skills. |
| June 1 | June 10 | Ask the community college to forward a transcript showing As in calculus and statistics. Enroll in accounting class for summer. |
| June 10 | June 25 | Ask a peer/school graduate to send a letter of support. |
* Bob decides against a second visit because the school is closed, and the adcom made it clear that they didn’t want to meet with him again. Bob hears about an early reception in his area aimed at next year’s applicants and decides to go to that event (May 20). There, he talks to an adcom member and mentions a change in responsibilities. The adcom member asks for a written update.
On June 26, Bob hears that he has been removed from the waitlist, but the school strongly encourages him to reapply the next year.
Sample #3
Charlie is waitlisted in late April. They have already been accepted to School Z but would rather attend the DCU school that has waitlisted them – unless they get an offer of financial aid from School Z. Charlie has no obvious weaknesses in their profile and has rich multicultural experience in both their personal background and professional career. They decide they would rather be proactive and risk the adcom’s wrath than do nothing. They turn to their fan club for support, but sparingly.
| ActionDate | TargetDate | Action |
| April 25 | Follow instructions informing the school of desire to remain on the waitlist. | |
| May 1 | May 10 | Ask a close friend (a student at the school) to write a letter of support. |
| May 1 | May 15 | Ask a supervisor to send in an additional recommendation. |
| May 5 | May 15 | Ask a teammate from a branch in another country to send in a letter of support. |
| May 10 | May 20 | Ask a fellow volunteer at nonprofit organization to send in a letter of support. |
| May 10 | May 20 | Talk to roommate (whose colleague is a recent graduate) about writing a letter of support. |
| May 25 | June 5 | Request a letter of support from father’s colleague, who is an active alumnus. |
| On June 15, Charlie receives a letter from School Z with a substantial fellowship offer. They decide to attend School Z and ask DCU school remove their name from the waitlist. | ||
Mistake #6: Failing to assess or act on weaknesses in your candidacy
Let’s face it, being waitlisted means that you’re qualified. The school wants you, just not as much as it wants someone else, so that someone else gets an offer of admission while you wait in the wings. Because most schools evaluate applications on a holistic basis, and admissions is a highly subjective process, it is difficult to say definitively why someone is waitlisted. However, a waitlist decision generally results from a combination of the following factors:
- The school saw a deficiency in the applicant’s profile and prefer other candidates. In the event that those admitted applicants do not accept the school’s offer of admission, the school will offer someone else a spot. (You want this offer to come to you!)
- The application was poorly executed. Two of the most common execution errors are a weak presentation of one’s qualifications and strengths and a failure to clarify one’s goals or reasons for wanting to attend the school.
- There are many accomplished applicants with similar profiles, and the adcom can’t admit them all.
In targeting your response to your waitlist status, you need to know where you stand.
The right move in this case is to assess the reasons you were waitlisted and respond accordingly.
Again, if you are lucky enough to receive feedback and direction from your waitlisting school, you should understand what you need to do. Simply follow the school’s instructions, and also provide information about new achievements, fit, and so on to ensure that you are covering all possibilities.
However, if you don’t receive any guidance – which is much more common – then you must do your own assessment (as ask for assistance). You need to determine what combination of the three factors mentioned earlier contributed to your waitlist status.
A Deficiency in Your Profile
If your GPA and/or GMAT/GRE score are at the bottom end of, or below, the school’s 80% range, those stats probably contributed to your waitlist status. You need to address the weakness(es) through additional coursework, a higher test score, a professional designation (e.g., the CFA charter), and/or a demonstration of the relevant skills in some other way.
For more suggestions on dealing with a low test score or GPA, please see our blog post “So, You’re Applying to Business School with a Low GPA or GMAT Score?”
If you believe that your work experience or extracurricular activities are qualitatively less than compelling, you need to highlight recent activities that will change that perception. You can also coach your fan club to highlight achievements that counter any perception of weakness.
Problems in Execution
If your stats and work experience are competitive, look at your essays, recommendations, and resume. They might have kept you from receiving the acceptance notification, and now is the time to address any problems in these areas. If you failed to clarify your goals, your reasons for wanting to attend the program, or your ability to work in teams, being on the waitlist gives you a second chance to do so. Grab it. For SMULM schools in particular, make sure that the reader of your waitlist correspondence knows exactly why you would attend the school and how it will help you achieve your goals.
Being an Overrepresented Applicant
Finally, if you are confident that you are a competitive applicant and your application presented you well, but you are a member of an overrepresented group in the applicant pool, realize that the school simply cannot admit every candidate like you and create the diverse student body it hopes to have. You should stress your high level of achievement and interest in the program. If you have unusual experiences, hobbies, or interests that you neglected to mention, let the school know about them so you can earn a few diversity points. For more tips on this point, see our article “Ensuring You Stand Out As an Overrepresented MBA Applicant.”
Mistake #7: Complaining to the school about the agony of being waitlisted
Don’t wax eloquent about the pain and shock of being waitlisted, the agony of a pseudo-rejection, or the embarrassment of telling your friends and colleagues. And for heaven’s sake, don’t say that you think the adcom made a huge mistake because you’re obviously a gift to the business world!
The right move is to thank the adcom for its continued consideration.
Beyond that, you can reiterate your qualifications, highlight your fit, express your ongoing interest, and, if the school welcomes them, share updates on your profile. But that’s it.
Mistake #8: Providing hyperbolic apologies for weaknesses or mistakes
Why bother with an exaggerated apology? All an overblown apology will do is shine a spotlight on your flaws and failings.
The right move is to highlight the positive.
I have encouraged you throughout this post to address weaknesses in your profile. At the same time, you don’t want to draw undue attention to those imperfections. Am I contradicting myself? No. You need to both address your weaknesses and highlight your strengths – without emphasizing the negative.
For example, if you scored below the 80th percentile on the Quant section of the GMAT or GRE, have a liberal arts background, and haven’t taken any math courses since high school, don’t start apologizing for your “weak” quant skills. Without mentioning your test score or lack of college-level math, let the adcom know that you have enrolled in a calculus class to prepare yourself for business school. You could add that for the same reason, you took an accounting course last fall, and you just found out that you earned an A.
If for some reason you must refer to a negative, don’t exaggerate it. I recently read a waitlist letter in which the applicant went on and on about his “dismal grades” and “dreadful performance,” but this is not the place for such inflated language. Minimalism is best.
Mistake #9: Playing “hard to get”
If you think you can impress your waitlisting schools by telling them that you have other offers, you are sorely mistaken. Such a tactic can backfire completely.
If School A hears that you have been accepted at School B, the adcom at School A might become concerned that you would prefer School B – in which case, accepting you could hurt School A’s yield. Alternatively, School A might realize that it is better ranked than School B or more desirable for any number of reasons and resent your ploy, seeing it as an unwelcome pressure tactic showing a lack of judgment on your part. Trying to play one school off another is completely counterproductive.
The right move is to inform your waitlisting school of other acceptances only if you are at a point where you will remove your name from the waitlist if you are not accepted. And if the school asks you directly whether you have been waitlisted or accepted at another school, answer the question honestly.
When time has passed and you have reached a point of no return, or are close to it, you have nothing to lose by approaching the waitlisting school. You have made your best effort, and time has marched on. You must commit to one school or the other. Because you will accept the offer of admission at the first school if you don’t hear positively from the second/waitlisting school and would prefer to attend the latter, contact the admissions office and explain your situation with humility and modesty. Ask the school representative on the other end of the line if they can help you.
The admissions officer might say something like “I’m sorry. I appreciate your situation, but we don’t have a spot for you now and won’t be evaluating the waitlist again for another two weeks.” If that’s the case, thank them for their time, and accept the offer to attend the other school.
On the other hand, the admissions officer might say, “We met this morning, and you’re in!” Or, “We are meeting this afternoon. Can I call you after we meet?” In this case, your phone call paid off.
The Right Moves
Now that we’ve gone through the top nine waitlist mistakes, let’s take a second look at the nine things you should do as a waitlisted MBA applicant:
- Do whatever the school outlines in the correspondence telling you that you have been waitlisted.
- Convince the school that you are a new and improved applicant.
- Reiterate for the adcom that you believe the school is the best one to help you achieve your goals.
- Actively solicit expressions of support from your friends, acquaintances, and colleagues – aka your “fan club.”
- Plan a campaign of steady, substantive contact.
- Assess the reasons you were waitlisted and respond accordingly.
- Thank the adcom for its continued consideration.
- Highlight the positive.
- Inform your waitlisting school of other acceptances only if you are at a point where you will remove your name from the waitlist if you are not accepted.
Dr. Christie St-John has more than 25 years of higher ed and admissions experience, including ten years in admissions at Dartmouth Tuck. She was formerly the director of MBA recruiting and admissions, director of international relations, and an adjunct faculty member at Vanderbilt University. Having also served on the board of directors of the MBA Career Services & Employer Alliance and the Consortium for Graduate Studies in Management, Christie has a deep knowledge of MBA and other graduate admissions. Want Christie to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch!
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