The ripples of recession hit economy are felt in every sphere. Education is one of the most and seriously affected areas. Students suffer a lot due to the regulations imposed for curbing the effects of recession. Freezing of admissions and financial aids are a detriment to students and their interest. In short, students are subjected to a pressure both on their admissions and the amount of financial aid they bound to get on their admission.

Declined Admissions or Wait Listed Candidates

In variably students are declined admissions from the colleges they apply for. They are kept in a waiting list for a while. Admission officers are of the opinion that they prefer keeping students in the wait list, because if admitted instantaneously the students tend to change their mind and move out of the college due to financial reasons or willingness to shift to their most liked colleges wait list.

In reality though students are pressurised due to declining admissions, the good thing is that colleges tend to admit more of wait listed candidates than in previous years. So it is good to stay waiting. Of course the bad news is that, those students who ought to have admitted instantaneously are put under waiting list. These candidates getting accepted may not be really worth the wait given the rising cost of education and lesser availability of financial aid.

Let us examine the situation prevailing at various colleges and universities.

• University of Texas – They fill under enrolled courses with students who are left in the waiting list. Due to the opinion that students get shifted away to lesser cost colleges like community colleges, it has prepared its first ever waiting list this year.
• Emory University – Students in the wait list are required to take special efforts to show their commitment towards the college or institution in order to ensure they are admitted.
• John Hopkins University – Finance becoming a problem, it is raising concern while granting aid to students. John Hopkins University has announced that if regular students end up using the entire finance ear marked for granting aids, then those students who can finance their education in full alone will be admitted from the wait listed candidates.
• Yale and MIT – These highly generous colleges as far as granting of financial aids are concerned, inspite of a very high percentage of applications, have accepted very few students and have put limited number of them in waiting list.
• North Caroline State University – It has an affordable tuition fee of $5,300 has a total of 300 students this year.
• University of Washington – Of the total applicants to the college, fearing students retreating due to financial resources, the college has reduced the number of admissions by 1000. It has a total of 2,500 students combining the list of admitted and wait listed students.
• Dickinson College – One of the expensive colleges in the country , where the annual tuition fee is around $40,000, has decided to increase the number of wait listed candidates by 10% making it around 500 students, keeping in mind the high cost of education and students intention to shift to colleges offering coaching at a lesser cost.

It is indeed a tough time for students, taking into account that the wait list could be dangling through midsummer of many students. Wait listed seats are seeming to be more tricky than expected given the reduced financial aid for students, in some cases there is absolutely no aid, offering of undesired courses in order to fill up the gaps in under enrolled courses and better chances of admission to wealthier students. Students should continue applying for more schools to ensure them admission to one of the colleges and choose the most cost effective school to avoid dropping out.