As candidates who have been waitlisted at MBA programs know, it’s never easy waiting for that final decision – especially as speculation in the various discussion boards mounts. Fortunately, many of the leading schools are increasingly forthcoming about this traditionally vague aspect of MBA admissions.
The Harvard Business School (HBS) Admissions Board has broken from tradition this year, providing an unprecedented level of transparency to its waitlisted candidates. In her monthly email update on the admissions process, HBS Admissions Board Member Eileen Chang revealed that approximately 40 candidates have been admitted to the 2009 MBA class from the waitlist in the past month. With the addition of waitlisted candidates from Round 2, the waitlist now stands at 295 applicants, she continued.
Yesterday, speaking with University of Chicago Graduate School of Business Associate Dean of Admissions Rosemaria Martinelli about a new traveling lecture series Chicago will launch later this month, we decided to get her take on the waitlist situation this admissions season. (Watch this space for details about the lecture series, “Chicago Conversations,” in an upcoming blog post.)
“It’s a very energetic season,” Martinelli says. “As the markets around the world are feeling the crunch, there seems to be huge interest in getting an MBA and in getting in off a waitlist.”
Chicago, like Harvard and many of the other top-tier schools, is using its waitlist much more aggressively this spring than usual, according to Martinelli. “It’s not like the 2001 bump,” she says. “We’re all hedging our bets and waiting to see what unfolds.”
Martinelli praised Harvard’s transparency around its waitlist. “Setting expectations is really, really important,” she says. That said, she and her staff just don’t know how things will fare this year. She did tell us that she managed the waitlist herself in Round 1 and will do the same in Round 2.
She wasn’t able to reach very deeply into the waitlist in Round 1, she says, though she didn’t provide specifics. “I feel very strongly for the people on the waitlist, because I simply don’t have more room.” If she did, they’d all be in already.
In fact, Martinelli was just about to head into a meeting with her staff to discuss the waitlist, she told us. “I have never seen so much enthusiasm verging on desperation,” she says. Unlike any year she can remember, she has seen waitlisted candidates visiting campus, demanding to meet with admissions officials, attempting to bargain for earlier decisions.
To those waitlisted at Chicago (or anywhere else, really), Martinelli offers some words of advice. “Try to be respectful of the organizations,” she cautions. “We recognize that the waitlist is a very hard place to be … but make sure you are projecting enthusiasm versus desperation.”
It’s called the waitlist for a reason. “Stay patient, enthusiastic and positive,” she encourages. “There is nothing lacking in your application – it is just a waiting game.”
If you do visit campus, she cautions, don’t demand to meet with anyone. “We really can’t give you information, and we won’t be able to make any immediate offers until we see how everything plays out,” she says. When she comes down to making the final decision, she says, “it really is about what pieces we are missing in our class.”
Chicago will likely host an online chat in the coming week to help answer some of the questions waitlisted candidates have, she says. Like Chang at HBS, Martinelli expressed compassion for those stuck in the lingering uncertainty of the waitlist. “This is a tough year to be applying to business school,” she says.
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