What does it mean to be put on a waiting list?

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Hi everyone, this is my first post!!! I'm currently a student at GA State and I'll be applying for Spring 2010. I have heard a lot of people are put on a waiting list after they apply. What does this mean? Does it mean I'm accepted but I have to wait until some drops? ?? And has anyone been put on a waiting list? For how long?

Thanks a lot

There are two different kinds of wait lists. For some schools, once you've completed your prereqs and met their standards (testing, essay, etc) you're added to a waitlist, and each time they start a new cohort, they go from the waitlist. So, you just wait out your time (I've heard as long as 3 years).

Other schools have a competitive admittance, so there is a deadline to apply to the program for a specific cohort (ie I think my school's deadline was Febuary 15, 2008 for the class starting Fall 09). So, if they have 100 seats in the program, they'll send a letter to the top 100 candidates who applied offering them admittance to the program. They'll also sent a letter offering a spot on the wait list, to the next group of candidates (I'm making up numbers here, so let's say 20) who met all the criteria and had the most competitieve application after the 20.

If folks who were in that first group of 100 decide to decline admission into the program (maybe it was their back-up school and they got into their first choice) then the next person on the waitlist gets offered a letter of adminssion.

Hope that helps!

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