Long college waiting lists are long shots...

In case you didn't know: Colleges' Tough Waiting Game: Schools Keep Hundreds of Applicants on Reserve Lists, but Very Few of Them Get In

"Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh admitted just six of 5,003 applicants invited onto its waitlist last year. At Cornell University, in Ithaca, N.Y., not one of 2,998 students offered a spot on last year's list was admitted. Princeton, which accepted 2,095 students for a record-low 7.86% admission rate this year, offered 1,472 applicants places on its waitlist. In the past six years, it has taken as few as zero from the list, or as many as 164.

"Many colleges are reluctant to disclose the number of students on their waitlists. Harvard, which admitted a record-low 5.9% of applicants this year, doesn't release the size of its list. A Harvard spokesman said it accepted 31 from the waitlist last year, and between 49 and 228 in the four years prior to that."

"Most schools know by May 1 who has accepted their initial offers of admission. They then turn to the waitlist to fill any remaining slots, a process that is supposed to wrap up by Aug. 1, a deadline set by the National Association for College Admission Counseling. On average, 45% of students offered spots on a waitlist accept, said the Princeton Review."