UCLA’s waitlist will help manage enrollment
By Hayden Padgett
April 19, 2012 7:17 p.m.
UCLA has opened an admissions waitlist for the first time in its 93-year history. Currently, 2,900 high school seniors have their names on that waitlist, hoping the school will soon tell them they have been officially admitted.
While this may seem like UCLA is inducing false hope, this waitlist is the university’s best shot at maintaining a healthy incoming class, balancing a robust freshman class against the risk of over-enrollment.
The custom of a university waitlist is by no means new; in some regards, UCLA has lagged behind other large institutions by not creating one until this point. Of the U.S. News’ top 10 national public universities, UCLA was the only institution without an undergraduate waitlist.
While that in and of itself is a poor reason to create one, the prevalence of waitlists at other colleges begs the question: What was UCLA missing?
Last year’s abnormally large freshman class was evidence of a problem with UCLA’s admissions process. According to UCLA Office of Admissions figures, the university issued a roughly standard quantity of acceptance letters last year.
But when 600 more Statements of Intent to Register were filed than had been expected, the problems began. Contrary to some sentiments, the class of 2015’s rotund numbers were a result of significantly greater interest in the university and not because the admissions department was greedy with its acceptance count.
Last year UCLA did over-enroll, and this over-enrollment directly caused the university to create a waitlist for this year, said Ricardo Vazquez, UCLA’s spokesman for waitlist announcements.
“It is an enrollment management tool,” Vazquez said. “It allows UCLA to ensure every (open) seat goes to a student without the risk of over-enrolling.”
Dianne Klein, spokeswoman for the UC Office of the President, said waitlists ensure students who truly want to attend a UC get a spot.
But according to last year’s admissions numbers, it doesn’t seem UCLA should be concerned with not filling every seat.
Even still, when the university over-enrolls, as it did last year, several issues arise.
The first issue is capacity. While the university does not seem to have a problem raking in Statements of Intent to Register, it does have a problem finding a place for all those new students as well as current students to live. If you don’t believe me, walk up Bruin Walk and observe the frantic pace at which UCLA is trying to expand its on-campus housing.
More importantly, an overly large freshman class can severely affect financial aid allocations.
“The last thing we want are a lot of students we can’t adequately fund,” said Ronald Johnson, director of the UCLA Financial Aid Office. In the long run, it would limit UCLA’s ability to provide aid, he said.
To prevent this inadequacy, the admissions department has implemented a waitlist. By accepting fewer eligible students than last year and adding those remaining students to a waitlist, the university hopes to protect itself from over-enrollment. In fact, the university accepted fewer applicants this year than in 2011, Johnson said.
But last weekend’s misleading financial aid notices point to the human impact a waitlist can have. The financial aid department sent an email that led nearly 900 waitlisted applicants to believe they had now been accepted ““ the ensuing confusion earned national attention.
While this incident was isolated and quickly addressed, there is validity to the concern that instituting a waitlist unduly raises the hope of applicants on that list, most of whom will not have their statuses changed. As responsible and conscientious students, ought we accept this leading on?
Yes, we should.
Every applicant on the waitlist chose to be there, knowing full well his or her odds. While I wish UCLA could welcome all interested students, our school has limitations, and those must be kept in perspective.
In the end, the admissions department made the wise choice in enacting a waitlist. It was not a decision born from a need for more students, nor was it meant to confuse prospective students. It serves the necessary purpose of ensuring the preservation of a highly qualified freshman class while hedging the risk of overwhelming our university.
Email Padgett at [email protected]. Send general comments to [email protected] or tweet us @DBOpinion.
