Latest news with #waitlist
Forbes
6 days ago
- General
- Forbes
College Admission Waitlist Follies
getty Historically, the college admission 'waitlist' was something that enrollment leaders used to round out their first-year class after the May 1 National Candidate Reply Date. With enrollment deposits in the bank, schools had a better sense of their yield—the number of students who accepted their offer of admission–and would rely on the waitlist to fill in the gaps or replace students who 'melted' (withdrew for any number of reasons after enrolling) over the spring and summer. Most of the waitlist activity was in May and early June and more prevalent among less selective schools. That was then, this is now! As application numbers have soared and admission and yield (as well as teenage behavior) are less and less predictable, enrollment managers increasingly use the waitlist actively as a significant tool in their process. No longer is it confined to a month or two. During this current admission cycle, some students were placed on the waitlist starting in November and December when their early application decisions landed. Instead of a college deferring an Early Decision applicant to the Regular Decision round, only to then waitlist them (this unfortunately happens), some schools are skipping the deferral and sending them directly to the waitlist. Other students were notified of their placement on the waitlist in March, and by the end of that month and into April, there was already significant movement with colleges accepting students off their waitlist. As we near the end of May, there are miles to go before enrollment leaders sleep. Waitlist activity at many institutions will likely persist well into the summer. Uncertainty reigns, even among the most selective colleges and universities. Take Harvard University for example where the Trump Administration has banned international students from enrolling. If nearly a quarter of their students are unable to attend, one has to assume that the waitlist will be crucial, and this will have repercussions throughout the admission landscape. Students track waitlist activity on social media, Reddit, and among friends while developing their own acronyms, like LOCI (Letter of Continued Interest). They often wonder if the 'list' is ranked (no) or if there is some priority, rhyme, or reason. The reality is that most colleges use it to fill specific needs. For example, if they are tracking behind on full-pay, male students from the midwest, these applicants will get the call. For universities that admit by college and/or major, if they are running short on humanities students in the College of Liberal Arts, these applicants will be in luck. There are plenty of articles and consultants that will claim they have the secret formula to being admitted off the waitlist. This is not that. Instead, I wanted to take a break from the hype around high-stakes selective college admission and offer some stories from admission officers and counselors. I asked them to share outlandish, creative, and/or head-scratching approaches that students have taken to try and be accepted from the waitlist. Stories flooded in, like the student who had a life-sized paper mache statue of herself with a fake acceptance card in her hand-delivered to the admission office. The follies had common themes and here they are: Footwear Fouls In an attempt at a Cinderella motif, one student sent a small glass slipper with a note asking to be accepted from the waitlist saying, 'I had a ball when I visited and the fit is there.' Another applicant sent a gold shoe that said "Just trying to get my foot in the door." Clearly, this is a popular approach, as one admission officer explains, 'Once we had a young man send the admissions office one of his size blue 15 Converse All-Stars with a note saying, 'I've got one foot in the door, how about the other one?'' Unfortunately, all they did was lose a shoe! Laughable Letters Often, waitlisted students will enlist alumni, politicians, celebrities, or other VIPs to write appeals to the director of admission on their behalf. Regrettably, the individual writing seldom knows the applicant well enough to be compelling. One student asked a notable senator to support them with the waitlist, but likely an aide wrote the letter because they mixed up the names. The plea they sent to the college was mistakenly addressed to the applicant and spent the whole note explaining how impressive the director of admission was and why they should be admitted. Needless to say, this correspondence was posted in the office for some time. An admission leader shared, 'One thing that I still have in my drawer is a folder from a girl who listed the number of reasons we should admit her from the waitlist. It was the exact number of people we had on the waitlist.' Another student sent a postcard to the director of admission every day until his status changed. A budding poet (pun intended) who found themself on a waitlist sent a letter with this simple rhyme: 'Roses are red, Violets are better. I will sit on your waitlist until I get my acceptance letter.' A counselor writes, 'About 25 years ago, I worked in admissions at a university in the Pacific Northwest. One year, a waitlisted student from Colorado took it upon himself to launch a daily letter-writing campaign to our office. Each day an envelope would arrive with a new reason for why we should admit him off the waitlist. I think it was Reason #6 that stated simply, 'I SUNBURN EASILY.'" Edible Efforts Many contributors shared stories of branded cookies or baked goods that incorporate the institution's colors that arrive at their offices. An admission officer writes, 'A long time ago, we had a student who had created a baking company while in high school. While on the waitlist, they sent a package of baked goods to us every single day.' Another leader explains, 'Every week through the month of April, a bundt cake arrived for the admissions staff and on the Friday closest to Easter, a human in an Easter bunny costume came with a bundt cake to continue with the creative waitlist advocacy.' And a student on the waitlist at Harvard, whose parents owned a candy store, once sent a three-foot-wide chocolate Harvard seal to the admission office. Musical Maneuvers One admission officer shares, 'My favorite waitlist attempt was a rap video about all the great things this student would do on campus if admitted,' adding, "Think Michael Scott meets Napoleon Dynamite.' A high school counselor says, 'Back when I worked in admissions, I traveled to New England each spring for a week or two of college fairs. One school in particular always hosted a lovely dinner for the admissions representatives before the fair, and I arrived on campus looking forward to the dinner and meeting with interested juniors at the fair. I had completely forgotten that there was a senior at this school on our waitlist. I enjoyed dinner and the chance to catch up with other admissions colleagues, right up until I heard that the school's a cappella group would be performing while we ate dessert. That's when I remembered that this waitlisted student was in the singing group. What I thought might be a slightly awkward few minutes of trying not to make eye contact with him while they sang turned even worse when I saw him step forward after their first song to call my name and ask me to come forward so they could serenade me. Bright red, I stood in front of the entire room of cackling college admissions officers while he kneeled in front of me and sang a song I've clearly blocked from memory. Unfortunately that turned out to be a year that we were not able to make many offers of admission from the waitlist and we did not admit him.' But the story doesn't end there…the former admission officer writes, 'Flash forward five years to my first year as a college counselor, working for another New England school. I went out to greet an admissions representative, visiting our students on behalf of another university, and discovered that he was the same young man who had serenaded me at that college fair. He ended up graduating from the college he was now representing as an admissions officer, wanting to share his transformative experience at that college that he ended up loving. Sometimes this process works out just as it should!' Closing Counsel My advice is, 'don't try these at home,' as more often than not it does not end well and you run the risk of annoying the very advocates that you want to have pulling for you. Follow the directions on your waitlist offer and don't do any more or less than instructed. If they ask for a letter of interest, send it. If they direct you not to submit additional materials, definitely do not send a rap video, shoe, or bundt cake. If it is meant to be, the college or university will reach out. In the meantime, while it does not hurt to remain on the waitlist optimistically, make sure you are getting excited about the school in which you enrolled and all the opportunities that you will have there.
CBC
20-05-2025
- Health
- CBC
It's much faster to get hip or knee replacements if there's a central waitlist: study
Canadians who need a hip or knee replacement could get the surgery more quickly — without adding to health-care budgets or opening more operating rooms — if central waitlists were created, the author of a new study says. The findings, published in Tuesday's issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, suggest it's significantly faster to add patients to a central list where they can see any surgeon in their area, compared to each surgeon having their own waitlists. Right now in Ontario, a primary care provider, such as your family doctor, refers you to a surgeon or physiotherapist to decide whether surgery is needed. If it is, you'll be put on one surgeon's waiting list, which could be long or short. Often, it's a long wait — in Canada, only two-thirds of patients receive their hip replacement within the 26-week recommended standard, according to data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information. For knee replacements, only 59 per cent are done within that time. So that's prompted some provinces to experiment with how they assign surgery patients to waitlists, with the goal of shortening overall wait times. For the study, Dr. David Urbach, head of the surgery department at Women's College Hospital in Toronto, and his team compared three models based on data collected from more than 17,000 patients across Ontario who were referred for hip or knee replacements in 2017. The three models were: Option 1: A family doctor refers you for assessment to a pool of surgeons or physiotherapists in the part of the province where you live. If you need surgery, you're assigned a surgeon and put on their waitlist. Option 2: The family doctor refers you to a specific surgeon or physiotherapist to decide whether surgery is needed. If you need an operation, then you're put in a pool for the next available surgeon in the part of the province where you live. Option 3: A combination of the first two: Your family doctor puts the request for assessment into a central pool — and, if you need surgery, you enter a second pool that includes all the qualified surgeons in your area and would see the next one available. Currently, patients awaiting joint replacements are like customers at a grocery store, Urbach said in an interview — they're stuck in a line, even if another checkout opens up. But the better option for surgery would be akin to going to the bank, where everybody moves through a common line and waits the shortest possible time. WATCH | Hospital replaces hips in 35 minutes: How a hospital is doing hip replacements in 35 minutes 1 year ago Duration 4:52 Toronto's Humber River Hospital has started using a new model to get more hip replacement patients through the operating room. CBC's Christine Birak breaks down how hyper-throughput surgeries work and why the hospital says it's the type of innovation provinces should invest in. When it comes to wait times, Urbach said the study found that random factors can crop up and slow down one surgeon — like one having an already long wait list and limited operating room time in a more rural area. Shorter waits with new system Priority for joint replacement surgery also depends on criteria like the degree of pain and disability and the risk of a worse outcome with a delay in surgery. In Ontario, the goal is for a patient to wait no longer than six months for a consultation, with the maximum wait for the surgery itself being another six months, the researchers said. For top priority cases, 90 days is the target wait time for those on a single surgeon's list, while the study found that comparable patients in the regional pool made it through in 84 days. In the study, Option 3 — where there was a central intake for consultation and for surgery — nearly halved wait times for the vast majority of patients in all regions, ranging from 111 fewer days in Toronto (from 257 to 146 days) to 281 days in Ontario West (from 536 to 255 days). Much of the wait time for joint replacements was for the surgery itself and not the consultation, the researchers found. "Unless you introduce a team-based model of care, you just have to wait until a spot opens up and that could be very long," Urbach said. "That could be a year, year-and-a-half or longer." Getting surgeons to buy in Canadians may have heard of team-based primary care, where patients have access to a well-connected interprofessional team such as family doctors, nurse practitioners, social workers and dietitians. Similarly, in team-based surgical care, a group of surgeons takes the next patient in order of priority, even if a patient's particular surgeon has a very long list, Urbach said. Asked what kind of reaction surgeons have given to team-based surgical care so far, Urbach said many are skeptical about moving away from keeping their own list of patients. "They're concerned that they'll lose their source of referrals," Urbach said. Dr. Olufemi Ayeni, president of the Canadian Orthopaedic Association and an orthopedic surgeon at McMaster, said he sees that view dissipating among those in the profession. "I think there will be some openness and there's definitely been a culture shift within orthopedics," Ayeni said. "We don't like hearing about patients who are suffering, needing pain medications. It feeds into other concerns [such as] opioid use." The study's authors acknowledged that unless surgeons believe that team-based models of care are beneficial to them and do not threaten their autonomy or opportunities for income and professional advancement, "these models of care are unlikely to be viable in Canadian health systems in which physicians are highly independent." Ayeni agreed, saying otherwise the response to team-based care among surgeons will be muted. Mohamed Alarakhia, a family physician and managing director of the non-profit eHealth Centre for Excellence in Kitchener, Ont., uses e-referrals for specialists. Alarakhia said it has already reduced orthopedic wait times by 54 days. Wait times across Canada Using a central intake for both assessment and surgeries equalizes wait times overall among surgeons, Alarakhia said. "We have examples in this province of where we've figured it out and across the country where they've done central intake," Alarakhia said, giving Quebec and Alberta as examples. "I believe we can solve these problems if we get some of these things in place." Health PEI said it's now adopting a centralized waitlist management system for surgical care, including hip and knee replacements.
Forbes
14-05-2025
- General
- Forbes
Still Waitlisted? What To Know About College Waitlists
May 1, also known as National Decision Day, is when high school seniors officially send their enrollment deposit to the college they plan to attend. Now that this deadline has passed, many graduating seniors are preparing for their next chapter: meeting roommates, choosing classes and other logistics. However, not every student is certain where they will be in the fall. With applications reaching record-breaking numbers, more schools are utilizing waitlists to ensure that they have a full freshman class enrolling in the fall. Here's what students on the waitlist need to understand moving forward. If a student is placed on a waitlist, it means they haven't been accepted, yet haven't been rejected. The admission officers liked the candidate, but at the same time, didn't have space to offer them a spot in the incoming freshman class. When a student receives their waitlist admission decision, they won't be automatically placed on the waitlist if they don't follow the correct steps. For example, to join Case Western Reserve University's waitlist, students had to respond by a certain date and write an essay on why they wanted to attend the university. On the other hand, the University of California-Davis simply wants students to confirm that they want to be on the waitlist; no additional letters of recommendation or essays needed (or wanted). To be considered, students should read carefully what is required before committing to the waitlist. The waitlist can be a tough place for students because it feels like admissions purgatory, unsure of what their chances of success will be. Waitlists can be unpredictable because of various factors like yield rates and institutional needs. Additionally, the number of students on the waitlist can vary greatly. Stanford University placed 414 students on the waitlist and only accepted 25 of them. Carnegie Mellon University placed more than 10,000 on the waitlist and accepted 32. Students should research the school's history of waitlist acceptances to learn how many applicants are typically accepted. This can help to manage expectations. While it makes sense for the waitlist to be ranked and accept students in a particular order, that is rarely the case. Some universities do rank their lists, however, most don't. Instead, the admission officers will review the school's institutional priorities like major, geographic diversity or underrepresented demographics, and then decide which students fit those needs best. If a school is looking for a student who doesn't need financial aid and is a computer science major from the South, the admission officers will first look at students who fit those qualifications. That student may get pulled from the waitlist even if they have lower stats than another student on the waitlist. For students placed on the waitlist, this isn't the opportunity to inundate admission officers with unsolicited information. The school will give clear instructions on what they want, such as an additional essay, another letter of recommendation or a letter of continued interest. Contacting the admissions office with unsolicited information will not improve your chances; therefore, once the requested tasks have been done, it is time to sit back and wait. There is no limit to the number of waitlists a student can be on at any time. Since there is no guarantee one will be accepted off the waitlist, it could make strategic sense to be on many waitlists, as long as the student would consider attending the university. Another reason a waitlist can feel like purgatory is that there is no clear timeline. Some students get informed that they are accepted off the waitlist before the May 1 enrollment deadline. Others might be notified just a few weeks before the fall semester begins. At Moon Prep, we have seen students get waitlisted at competitive BS/MD programs. The University of Missouri-Kansas City, Siena College, Union College, Rensselaer Polytechnic University, and the University of South Carolina all utilized the waitlist this year. When students were notified they were accepted off the waitlist, they were given a deadline to decide, typically 48-72 hours before the offer passed to the next student. Students accepted off the waitlist might still receive scholarships. However, it will likely be need-based aid and not merit-based scholarships. The merit-based scholarships have likely all been distributed. If a student doesn't get merit aid as a freshman, they can talk to the financial aid office to learn what scholarship opportunities will be available to apply to as a sophomore. Unfortunately, the enrollment deposit is non-refundable. The enrollment deposit is typically less than $500, and could be a relatively small price to pay for getting into a dream school at the last minute. Being on the waitlist can be stressful, but students should remain realistic. While waiting for a waitlist notification, make sure to move forward with your plans at the school where you made an enrollment deposit. Stay hopeful and keep checking your inbox—you never know when the notification may come.
CBC
14-05-2025
- General
- CBC
First-of-its-kind city-funded rooftop child care centre opens in Vancouver
The city has opened up dozens of new child-care spaces at a secondary school. It has helped many on the wait lists. But as Tanushi Bhatnagar explains, thousands of parents are still waiting for a spot for their children.
RNZ News
12-05-2025
- Health
- RNZ News
Health NZ aims to cut surgery waitlists by outsourcing to private hospitals, extending doctors' hours
Photo: Unsplash / RNZ composite Health New Zealand plans to cut its elective surgery waitlist by outsourcing thousands of simple cases to private hospitals, while asking public hospital doctors to work longer hours on the more complex cases. Surgeons have reacted to the plan with confusion, saying they are already stretched. Labour warned the approach would likely lead to complex patients waiting even longer. Even if it succeeds, the plan may not keep up with a seven percent increase in waitlist numbers, as eligibility thresholds are standardised across the country, documents released to RNZ showed. "This increase is adding almost 15,000 people each year to the waitlist," a January briefing to Health NZ commissioner Lester Levy said. Health NZ has a target of treating 95 percent of people waiting for elective surgery within four months. As of January, only 60 percent of people were being treated within that timeframe. The documents showed Health NZ wanted surgeries performed to increase by 20 percent by June next year, in order to improve waiting times. While some cases would be outsourced to private hospitals, most would be cleared by the public sector by "incentivising" clinicians to work evenings, weekends and public holidays, Levy advised health minister Simeon Brown in a February briefing paper. Surgeons questioned who would do the work. "Most surgeons already work long hours, including evenings and weekends," Australasian College of Surgeons' New Zealand chair Ros Pochin said. "There are some surgeons who work purely privately, but most work privately and publicly so there isn't a cache of private surgeons sitting there twiddling their thumbs in the evenings and weekends who can suddenly call in." Health NZ commissioner Lester Levy outlined a plan to cut waiting lists in a January 2025 briefing to health minister Simeon Brown Photo: RNZ In March, Brown announced nearly 10,600 surgeries would be outsourced to the private sector at a cost of $50 million. That would lift the proportion of patients waiting less than four months to 67 percent by June this year. Documents showed Health NZ needed to fund a further 5300 operations by August, and another 15,800 between September and June 2026. That would lift its performance to 70 percent of patients treated within the four-mounth window, and take the total number of elective surgeries performed between March and June 2026 to 31,600. The documents said the extra surgeries would be paid for from existing health budgets through "ongoing operational efficiency", though in an interview with RNZ, Brown said the government would also be investing new money to help pay for them. Private hospitals would be given two- to three-year contracts guaranteeing "high volume low-complexity cases" while "high complexity work will be completed in-house". Labour's health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said it was concerning that the private sector would only tackle the easier cases on the waitlist under the new contracts. "That means that people who have more complex conditions won't necessarily be the people targeted by the government initiative to bring down the waitlist, and it probably means longer waits for them." While it was good to reduce the waitlist, the process also had to be fair, Verrall said. Brown said waitlists had "ballooned" under the last government and working with the private sector was part of the solution to get through the backlog. Outsourcing to private hospitals was more expensive than expanding public sector capacity, and building new or refurbishing hospitals was also needed, Health NZ executives told Brown in January. However, it was an opportunity to make private hospitals "a central part of our planning," Health NZ South Island regional deputy chief executive Martin Keogh wrote. Brown said he was focused on using both public and private systems so people could get treatment in a timely fashion. The government was pumping an extra $16.7 billion into Health NZ over three budgets to increase delivery and shorten wait times, he said. Theatre capacity was being expanded at two hospitals in Auckland, at Christchurch's Burwood Hospital, and in Hamilton and Wellington. "It's making sure the lists are full and theatres are being used to the maximum efficiency. We're also looking across private hospitals where surgeons may have spare capacity." He had been assured by the private sector that it had capacity, he said. "I acknowledge that our doctors, our senior medical officers, our surgeons are working incredibly hard. They're doing an incredible job. "The conversations I've had with the private hospitals is that there is spare capacity and that there are opportunities where there may be spaces on lists," Brown said. Health minister Simeon Brown Photo: RNZ / REECE BAKER However, the Health NZ papers said outsourced operations could only be delivered if there were senior clinical staff available, "whilst ensuring Health NZ remains able to safely manage the clinical workload of our public hospitals". There was a risk that private sector capacity would be "insufficient" due to workforce availability, the papers warned. Ros Pochin, who is also a general surgeon at Nelson Hospital, said that risk was real, as most surgeons already worked long hours, including after hours. "There's only 800 of us in the country. We already work out-of-hours, as we all do on call. I'm about to start a week of continuous on-call myself, which I'll do 81 hours straight day and night. And so we get very little time off as it is." The college was against outsourcing elective surgeries, she said. "Outsourcing is essentially an admission that we have not got an adequately funded and resourced health system." The government needed to fund the public health system properly, and recruit and retain more doctors, she said. Meanwhile, Health NZ warned waitlists were growing by 15,000 people a year and changing eligibility criteria was likely to increase that further. "The changing of thresholds for [First Specialist Assessments] and treatment thresholds will alter these numbers, and the costs required to achieve the objective." First Specialist Assessments (FSAs) are the first specialist appointment a patient has after being referred by a GP. Health NZ redacted the estimated costs of changing the thresholds, citing commercial reasons. In a statement, the agency said there was currently variation in thresholds used by clinicians between districts and clinical specialities and it was working to "harmonise" access criteria for first specialist appointments, which was likely to lead to more people being eligible. "This work will initially focus on Ear, Nose and Throat (ORL) and Orthopaedics, which represent around 30 percent of the FSA and elective treatment waitlists." ASMS executive director Sarah Dalton said some patients were not even being referred for a specialist assessment in the first place Photo: LANCE LAWSON PHOTOGRAPHY / Supplied Association of Salaried Medical Specialists executive director Sarah Dalton said people were already missing out on referrals, because GPs doubted they would ever be seen because of growing waitlists. "So they're not bothering to refer in the first place." She was also concerned that public hospital doctors did not have any say over which patients should be outsourced, "They're told that's in the hands of the private hospital provider." Another senior doctor warned Brown in March there were risks to outsourcing more operations to the private sector, and this approach would only work if public and private worked collaboratively. "It is vital those establishing contracts recognise there are clinical obligations and responsibilities in the public sector that must not be weakened by outsourcing. Health New Zealand must consider such risks in the contracting process," Health Workforce and System Efficiencies Committee chair Andrew Connolly wrote. The committee advises the minister on workforce challenges. The 15 March memo to the minister was heavily redacted, including all the risks and mitigation strategies the committee suggested.
