Duke / Fuqua - Note - 03-19-2019 | Clear Admit LiveWire

March 18, 2019 10:59pm ET

Note about Duke / Fuqua

Round: Round 2

Received via n/a

Note:

Today was the decision day, and I see a minimal amount of rejections and a ton of waitlists. Is the waitlist the new reject pile?

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Show Comments (5) Last: March 19, 2019

grichmond Verified User. Likes Earned: 1145 Given the somewhat stagnant (or even contracting) MBA application market in the USA of late, a lot of schools are using the waitlist as insurance against what the industry calls "melt". In short, in a market where a group of top schools increasingly compete for the same group of elite candidates, the yield numbers can take a hit, and even those who have deposited can 'melt' away when coming off other schools' waitlists. Of course, there isn't necessarily anything new here; schools have done this sort of thing for many years...but in a contracting market it can be a bit more pronounced. I should also add that on the margin, it's possible that folks using LiveWire may be more inclined to report positive news (accepted, waitlisted) than negative (rejected) - so keep that in mind as well.
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anon17908 Likes Earned: 2 Anecdotally, I have a friend that didn't get into his R1 schools and DIDN'T report them on the LiveWire, but did get into this R2 schools and DID report on livewire. (0)

anon42316 Likes Earned: 0 Further, it seems like many people who interviewed were waitlisted rather than dinged. That means people who didn't receive interviews may have already figured they were dinged, never bothered to check for sure, and had no impetus to report it. I think it's crappy procedure to WL people to keep acceptance numbers low, but when rankings take it into account, I'm not sure what else you might do. But, I think most people could probably agree that the process of applying to top MBA programs is overall awful so why stop it now? ha. (0)

anon23198 Likes Earned: 1 I just looked at the USNews methodology and yield is not an (explicit) criterion. Which rankings use yield as an input? Or more generally do you think that yield is more of a measure in and of itself as opposed to something used in rankings? (0)

anon17908 Likes Earned: 2 There is a weird notion from prospective students that it has to do with rankings, I think it's an easy scapegoat on why they were waitlisted (i.e., blame it on an external factor). I think GRichmond's two points are legitimate points. (0)

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