Getting into Yale is hard, as you’ve experienced. Yale had a 3.7% overall first-year acceptance rate in 2024 after receiving the largest pool of applications ever in Yale history — and 10% larger than the previous year.
Each year, Yale has offered a space on the waitlist for a thousand or more applicants. This can give a spot of hope to students who are relieved to not have been rejected outright. The outcomes, though, aren’t as hopeful. In the 2022-2023 application year, 1145 potential first-years were offered a spot on the waitlist. 899 accepted the offer. Zero were extended an offer of admission. Literally none.
This is not a rare occurrence. While students do sometimes get off of the Yale waitlist, the statistics are not hopeful. The previous year, for Fall 2022 admission, 9 of 780 student on the waitlist were admitted, or 1.15% were extended an offer. Before that, for Fall 2021 admission, 4 of 774 were admitted — .52%.
Why do they keep putting so many people on the waitlist if they actually accept so few? Good question. The waitlist is free insurance. If fewer students than expected accept an offer of admission, those of the waitlist are a fall back. The plan is solid, if painful for those waiting. And it rarely comes in handy. The yield rate for Yale is historically exceptional.
So, what should you do if you are offered a spot on the Yale waitlist? Below we breakdown what you need to do now to increase your chances of getting into Yale while ensuring that you have a successful path forward for your college experience wherever you end up.
Getting off of a waitlist is hard, but we can help. Learn more about how we work with students to amplify their applications after a waitlist decision.
There are four steps that you absolutely must take if you want any chance of getting into Yale after a waitlist decision.
Step 1: Join the Waitlist
First, you need to get in the game. You don’t have a chance of getting off of the waitlist if you don’t join it. This sounds obvious, but it’s real. When Yale notified you of the waitlist decision, they gave you a deadline by which to respond if you’d like to join it. Do this. Don’t stress if it took you a couple of days, though. The Yale waitlist isn’t organized based on when you claimed your spot, and your chances of acceptance aren’t impacted by response time — as long as it’s before the deadline.
Step 2: Pick a School and Commit
Next, you need to get excited about your other options. That may mean actively finding reasons to be excited, and that’s work worth doing. If you had your heart set on Yale, it’s possible you didn’t spend a lot of time looking into the nuances of the schools you have been accepted by. Now is the time to fully explore your options. Talk to friends or family at the schools, explore course lists, and read the school paper for student perspectives and on-campus news. Visit, if you can.
All of this will prepare you to make the best possible decision as the deadline approaches for committing to a school. And, before that deadline, you need to pick a college, confirm your spot, and submit the required deposit. This deposit is most often non-refundable, so you need to be ready to lose it. While getting into Yale off of the waitlist is very unlikely, you should still have this conversation with your family, or who else is part of your support system, so that no one is blindsided should you be offered the opportunity to commit to Yale and, subsequently, relinquish the deposit for another school.
Step 3: Write a Letter…Carefully.
In the words of Yale admissions officers themselves in a helpful podcast episode dedicated to the college’s decisions, “there’s not a whole lot you can or should be doing.”
They are even more explicit, sharing that “you are not going to help your case by calling us, visiting campus, sending a million updates, or getting the whole town to write on your behalf and it helps to understand why we have a wait list.” And all of those are things students have surely tried in the past, with no success.
This is why we don’t suggest bombarding them with updates or further information in an attempt to strengthen your application. However, we do suggest sending one short update as an email or, if requested, submitted through the online portal. This is called a letter of continued interest. It should be short, and focus on meaningful updates to your application like an award or recognition that you received after submitting. You should also clearly and directly state that you will attend Yale if accepted. They know this — it’s Yale, after all — and it isn’t binding, but it is important to make clear when, and if, you send an update.
If you do not have meaningful updates to your application, it may well be best to play it cool and not reach out. Reaching out with nothing new to say is, actually, worse than sitting silent when it comes to Yale. Especially as they may never actually reconsider your candidacy. “We want to go to the waitlist,” they say, “but occasionally, there’s just not any room.”
Step 4: Move On
This is probably the hardest one, but it’s also critically important. You’re waiting on Yale, but you’re also committed to a school and in your senior spring. You should be celebrating! We encourage students to enjoy this time, even if the outcome wasn’t exactly what they’d hoped for.
It’s worth remembering, too, that if you do not get into Yale, they do allow rejected first-year applicants to reapply as transfers — as long as they are under the maximum number of applications (3). However, it is less likely that a student will be accepted upon each application unless there are really significant changes to your application far and beyond the passage of time. So, it’s important to chart a future without Yale, even as you hold onto the possibility of Yale. And if you do want help with a fresh go of it, let us know. We help students stand out.
Getting into a hyper-selective college is hard. Getting waitlisted is often harder. Contact us to get your personalized next steps.