my wife LTVP rejected

[NYY1]

I think a lot of it is false competition. What would be helpful is to impose a limit on the number of schools applicants can apply to, similar to the UCAS system in the UK where applicants are only permitted to apply to five schools, including one of either Oxford or Cambridge, not both. This reduces competition significantly and allows applicants a better chance at schools which truly have their interest.

Now, it's not uncommon to see students applying to 30 or more schools just to cast a wide net. There's no way in hell that they are equally interested in all 30, but if they are a qualified candidate, they may very well get into a large majority of the schools, taking away precious spots from kids who do not have as good of a turnout come decision time.

I don't disagree with the concept; it would force kids to reveal where they really want to go vs just applying for high ranking schools and hoping for the best. At the same time, it doesn't seem like some of these schools have an abundance of leftover vacancies, and in fact the WL conversion doesn't seem to be exceptionally high either. I.e. the schools are issuing admits (above expected enrollment) and enough of them are taken up to meet the intake numbers (even with many admits given up because any particular student can only go to one uni).

Regardless, practically speaking there probably isn't much of a push to make this happen so we are all stuck with what it is.

Well, obviously certain schools like in demand ivies will rarely need to pull from their waitlists, but other low tier 1 and tier 2 schools tend to admit thousands from the waitlist. UCLA, for example, admitted a couple thousand from the waitlist just last year. Clearly, they had tons of leftover vacancies.

Understand, you are right; the issue extends beyond a small number of schools. I've always liked UCLA for the campus location, but depending on what you want to do there may be more attractive options. The university (and Berkeley) have always been among the top state schools and very popular, but I think UCLA has become even more popular in recent years (I guess the so-called rankings reflect this too). It may have even become one of the highly targeted non-Ivy/Ivy+ backups. I think in years past, the academic stats for Enrolled students tended to be a bit below the stats for Admitted students, implying that some of the admitted were also applying elsewhere (i.e. harder to get in), got lucky, and gave up the UCLA offer. This may also be why they have a large WL (I don't know the specific number).

[Lisafuller]

I don't disagree with the concept; it would force kids to reveal where they really want to go vs just applying for high ranking schools and hoping for the best. At the same time, it doesn't seem like some of these schools have an abundance of leftover vacancies, and in fact the WL conversion doesn't seem to be exceptionally high either. I.e. the schools are issuing admits (above expected enrollment) and enough of them are taken up to meet the intake numbers (even with many admits given up because any particular student can only go to one uni).

Regardless, practically speaking there probably isn't much of a push to make this happen so we are all stuck with what it is.

Well, obviously certain schools like in demand ivies will rarely need to pull from their waitlists, but other low tier 1 and tier 2 schools tend to admit thousands from the waitlist. UCLA, for example, admitted a couple thousand from the waitlist just last year. Clearly, they had tons of leftover vacancies.

Understand, you are right; the issue extends beyond a small number of schools. I've always liked UCLA for the campus location, but depending on what you want to do there may be more attractive options. The university (and Berkeley) have always been among the top state schools and very popular, but I think UCLA has become even more popular in recent years (I guess the so-called rankings reflect this too). It may have even become one of the highly targeted non-Ivy/Ivy+ backups. I think in years past, the academic stats for Enrolled students tended to be a bit below the stats for Admitted students, implying that some of the admitted were also applying elsewhere (i.e. harder to get in), got lucky, and gave up the UCLA offer. This may also be why they have a large WL (I don't know the specific number).

UCLA waitlisted somewhere around 15,000 students last year.