USNA Class of 2026 Waitlist

Honestly, moving on and being excited about plan B is healthy! And the way to go!
 
Countdown Clock is running,... Who else interrupts their day to say a prayer?,... with fingers crossed?
( And Oh yeah I pick up pennies,..)
 
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For those waiting . . . as you know, the date to accept / decline an appointment was May 1. USNA now has to compare number who accepted appointments vs. number of positions in the plebe class. There are probably a few folks still awaiting medical clearance, so that has to be considered as well.

USNA then determines if they will take anyone from the WL. If the number of accepted appointments is equal to or greater than the number of slots in the plebe class, no one would come off the WL and notifications would go out pretty quickly. If the number of acceptances is lower than the number they can admit, they then turn to the WL to fill those open slots. Since the WL isn't ranked at the outset, they have to look at the entire WL to decide whom to take from it. As part of this process, they notify WLers of TWEs.

This process can take several weeks -- the process generally takes longer if there are more open spots to fill than if very few, but that's not a hard and fast rule. Also, as noted, there could be a few candidates awaiting medical clearance (for example, had surgery and are waiting to be cleared by the MD for full activities). If they don't clear, those spots might open up quite late. However, by that time, the number of the WL who haven't been notified one way or the other is also very small.
 
usna1985 said:
For those waiting . . . as you know, the date to accept / decline an appointment was May 1. USNA now has to compare number who accepted appointments vs. number of positions in the plebe class. There are probably a few folks still awaiting medical clearance, so that has to be considered as well.

USNA then determines if they will take anyone from the WL. If the number of accepted appointments is equal to or greater than the number of slots in the plebe class, no one would come off the WL and notifications would go out pretty quickly. If the number of acceptances is lower than the number they can admit, they then turn to the WL to fill those open slots. Since the WL isn't ranked at the outset, they have to look at the entire WL to decide whom to take from it. As part of this process, they notify WLers of TWEs.

This process can take several weeks -- the process generally takes longer if there are more open spots to fill than if very few, but that's not a hard and fast rule. Also, as noted, there could be a few candidates awaiting medical clearance (for example, had surgery and are waiting to be cleared by the MD for full activities). If they don't clear, those spots might open up quite late. However, by that time, the number of the WL who haven't been notified one way or the other is also very small.
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Is WL clearing based on your state specifically due to open slates from declines/medical clearance issues? For instance I know of two from our state who declined their offers to USNA. If that opens up a spot, does admissions team look to the whole WL or more specifically those WLers from that state?
 
Is WL clearing based on your state specifically due to open slates from declines/medical clearance issues? For instance I know of two from our state who declined their offers to USNA. If that opens up a spot, does admissions team look to the whole WL or more specifically those WLers from that state?
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Let me start by saying: I don't know. My understanding is that it's merit-based, in that they start with the "best" candidate on the WL. However, we all know that "best" is in the eye of the beholder. States could play into it, as could districts / slates. IOW, if there were only a handful of appointees from a small state (e.g., WY, ND), and several of them declined, I could see USNA wanting to take one or more from the WL for that state. Likewise, if a particular MOC district had only one appointee who declined and there are zero / very few mids at USNA from that district, USNA might look to the WL for someone from that district. But it's somewhat of a black hole for BGOs and candidates . . .
 
I attended an admissions BGO training just last summer. And this piece was particularly interesting to me. For certain, it was made clear, directly from admissions, that the WL is NOT a ranked and stacked, only merit based list. IOW, the top XX are not pulled, in order, and placed in open slots.

Exactly as @usna1985 stated, and it’s a purposefully grey-ish area. Each open situation is looked at individually (for example, a slate may have been submitted as a ranked slate, and # 1 has a medical issue still awaiting clearance. So *potentially* a # 2 could be on the WL, and offered….this is for illustrative purposes only).

Moral of the story: you *still* cannot make any assumption about your likelihood of an appointment based upon another acceptance/decline. You are still in it, until you aren’t.

It’s not for us to know or understand. One of the universes great mysteries!!
 
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…and my phone just reminded me that TWO years ago, on this day, mine was pulled!

Could be some this year. Could be none this year. But every day that passes, is a day closer to knowing!
 
4 years ago, admissions shared a slide that showed 90% acceptance yield at Navy. 86% at Harvard. 85% at MIT. So if the numbers don’t change much there can be about 120 spots for the Waitlist candidates. I remember some got off the Waitlist on I-Day! “Don’t Give Up the Ship.”
 
CrewDad said:
So if the numbers don’t change much there can be about 120 spots for the Waitlist candidates. I remember some got off the Waitlist on I-Day! “Don’t Give Up the Ship.”
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Keep in mind, Admissions considers the traditional "yield" when making offers, ie. they actually make more Offers of Appointment than they actually need to fill the Class, so they don't start pulling from the wait list until the yield is below their expectations.

If the yield is better than expected, i.e. to many offers have been accepted and the Class is overbooked, they simply turn the heat up during Plebe Summer so that the class is down to the desired size by the end of Plebe summer ;) [I am 100% joking on this last comment; USNA does not seek to attrite Plebes to adjust class size !]
 
Maybe I’m trying to be overly optimistic , but I thought the 1245 offered appointments for class of 2026 was lower than previous years . I can’t remember where I saw the stats posted , but I thought over 1300 were offered appointments last year and over 1400 the year before . DD is committed to Plan B and we are being realistic about the waitlist , but there is still that glimmer of hope .
 
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