F1GMAT: What are some of the best practices that an MBA candidate should follow if they are waitlisted? Some experts advice to follow up regularly and others advice to be cautious with follow ups. What is your advice on follow-up frequency?
AdmissionsConsultants: To successfully navigate the waitlist process, you must first understand the purpose of the waitlist. The waitlist is what the admissions committee uses to control yield. Yield is the percentage of admitted applicants who ultimately choose to attend the program.
A waitlisted applicant is essentially a very well qualified individual. If there were more spots in the incoming class, this person may have been admitted. However, the admissions committee is turning its focus on admitted applicants and is much more concerned with how many nonrefundable deposits (commitments) it receives from the admits than it is, per se, about the waitlisted applicants.
They will turn to the waitlist once they are finished with the admitted applicant pool to fill any remaining spots and to ensure the incoming class is well diversified.
Now that we have gone over how the waitlist works from the school’s perspective, we can look at this from the waitlisted applicant’s perspective. The first step is to follow the school’s specific directions.
Columbia, for instance, asks that you not send additional materials. Consequently, if you get an email from CBS, you should do nothing more than reiterate your strong commitment to the school with an enthusiastic and well-written email. It is OK to “enhance” your profile with an update, but keep it brief.
For other schools such as MIT and NYU that ask for additional information, you should reiterate your strong interest in the program and look to mitigate your weaknesses. Updates and letters of reference are often helpful. Be certain that any additional recommendations add new insight to your candidacy and don’t just simply regurgitate what previous recommenders already stated in your application.
Frequency gets a lot of applicants in trouble. Sending too many follow-ups to the school is just as bad as sending none. As stated earlier, the admissions committees are far more concerned with their admitted applicants than the applicants on the waitlist. Sending an inordinate amount of updates will only gain you an unfavorable label and can even harm your chances as a re-applicant.
About David Petersam
David Petersam is the president and founder of AdmissionsConsultants, Inc., launched in 1996. He graduated from the University of Chicago with an MBA.At Chicago, he gained an insider’s knowledge of MBA admissions, working in the admissions office there and contributing to admissions committee decisions. Prior to his MBA studies, he was a Certified Public Accountant.
On college and graduate admissions, Petersam has been quoted in the New York Times, featured in T.V. and radio programs, and has published a guest column in the Washington Business Journal.
About the Author
I am Atul Jose, Founding Consultant of F1GMAT, an MBA admissions consultancy that has worked with applicants since 2009.
For the past 15 years I have edited the application files of admits to the M7 programs: Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, the Wharton School, MIT Sloan, Chicago Booth, Kellogg School of Management, and Columbia Business School, together with admits to Berkeley Haas, Yale School of Management, NYU Stern, Michigan Ross, Duke Fuqua, Darden, Tuck, IMD, London Business School, INSEAD, SDA Bocconi, IESE Business School, HEC Paris, McCombs, and Tepper, plus other programs inside the global top 30.
My work covers the full MBA application deliverable: career planning and profile evaluation, application essay editing, recommendation letter editing, mock interviews and interview preparation, scholarship and fellowship essay editing, and cover letter editing for funding applications. Full bio with credentials and admit history is here.
I am the author of the Winning MBA Essay Guide, the best-selling essay guide covering M7 MBA programs. I have written and updated the guide annually since 2013, which makes the 2026 edition the thirteenth.
The reason I still write and edit essays every cycle: a good MBA essay carries a real applicant's voice. Writing essays for F1GMAT's Books and Editing essays weekly is how I stay calibrated to what current admissions committees respond to.
Contact me for school selection, career planning, essay strategy, narrative development, essay editing, interview preparation, scholarship essay editing, or guidance documents for recommendation letters.