Waitlist Game Theory - am I just overthinking? So, I'm on the dreaded waitlist (PoI says I am &quot;near the very top&quot; of the list) for my top choice PhD program and naturally I've spent the past couple days driving myself nuts trying to game the process out.
As I understand it there are two general approaches a grad adcom might take: 1) making more offers than the program has spots available, expecting a certain yield which will produce the desired cohort size or 2) making as many offers as there are spots, and moving to the waitlist to achieve desired cohort size if necessary.
My intuition tells me that #1 is more common, but in that case I don't quite understand the purpose of a waitlist--it seems that there would have to be an anomalously low yield in a given year for the program to ever have to move to the waitlist. So, do you find that #1 or #2 is more common?
I have two offers in hand, but my heart is really set on this program. Adding to the stress is of course the cascading nature of the PhD waitlist (i.e. someone is probably holding off on declining their offer at my top choice program because they're waitlisted at some other school; the same goes for someone waitlisted at one of the programs I have an offer from, and so on and so on). Basically it seems like we're all waiting for someone to get into their top choice program, and set in motion the chain reaction of declined offers.
Intuition would also tell me that this all basically happens on April 14 or 15 because nobody wants to accept an offer from a program that isn't their top choice until it is absolutely necessary--so the cascade doesn't start until then unless there are a sufficient number of people who have top choice offers who then actually decline other offers in a timely manner.
Am I just overthinking this whole thing? Or is this entire process completely bizarre and up in the air until the last minute? Has anyone gotten off a PhD waitlist well before April 15?
I don’t think you’re overthinking, you’re just... thinking. But basically, you’re thinking about things that are beyond your control, so in that sense any amount of thinking does not benefit you in any practical sense.
For what it’s worth, many departments hold events allowing admitted students to visit the department (virtually, these days) and meet with faculty. My own department’s event is today and tomorrow, and I had a pleasant meeting with several of the visitors. So I expect many students will be making decisions soon after attending such events. Keep in mind they don’t all know ahead of time their precise order of ranking the different programs (unlike what your intuitive “model” seems to assume), but instead go through a due diligence process where after getting admitted to several schools, they find out more information about each one and then make a decision. There is no reason why this can’t happen well ahead of April 15, and I believe it often does.
Good luck!