I got waitlisted from Skidmore College. What should I do now?

Your odds are better than you probably think, and unlike many of the schools you may have applied to, Skidmore gives you real room to advocate for yourself.

For the Class of 2029, Skidmore offered 2,778 applicants a place on the waitlist. Of those, 861 accepted a spot. From that pool, 79 were ultimately admitted, a waitlist acceptance rate of approximately 9.2%. Compare that to Carnegie Mellon at 0.3%, MIT at 1.8%, or UIUC at roughly 0.05% in the same cycle. Skidmore's waitlist is not a dead letter. It is a genuine mechanism for filling a class of roughly 660 to 700 students, and the admissions office uses it actively. That said, 9% is not a guarantee. The majority of waitlisted students will not be admitted. But the odds are real enough that your effort over the next few weeks is absolutely worth making.

Accept your spot on the waitlist now. Skidmore will provide instructions for confirming your place through your applicant portal. Follow them immediately. If you do not formally opt in, you will not be considered. The waitlist is not ranked, so there is no strategic advantage to timing your response, but there is no reason to delay either.

Commit to another school before May 1. Skidmore will not know whether it needs to go to the waitlist until after the enrollment deadline, when admitted students either commit or decline. You need a deposit down at another school by that date. If Skidmore ultimately offers you admission, you can accept and unenroll from the other school. You will lose the deposit, but that is the standard cost of keeping the waitlist option open.

Write a letter of continued interest, and treat it as your most important move. This is where Skidmore's waitlist process diverges from schools like Carnegie Mellon and UIUC, which explicitly tell waitlisted students not to send additional correspondence. Skidmore does not prohibit letters of continued interest, and at a small liberal arts college where demonstrated interest matters and the admissions staff reads applications with genuine care, a well-crafted letter can make a meaningful difference.

Your letter should accomplish one thing above all else: it should make the reader understand exactly who you will be at Skidmore and why that campus is the only place where your particular combination of interests, passions, and academic goals can be fully realized. Writing this letter for Skidmore is different from writing one for a research university. Skidmore's identity is built around the idea that creative thought matters, and the admissions office takes that seriously. They are looking for students who think across disciplines, who blur the lines between art and science, who bring an intellectual energy that cannot be reduced to a GPA or a test score. Your letter needs to reflect that.

Be specific. Do not write that Skidmore appeals to you because of small class sizes and a beautiful campus. Every liberal arts school in the Northeast has those. Instead, reference specific programs, professors, courses, research opportunities, or student organizations that connect to your particular academic and creative interests. If the new Billie Tisch Center for Integrated Sciences excites you because of how it brings ten science departments under one roof, explain how that structure aligns with the way you think about your own academic trajectory. If you visited campus and had a specific conversation that deepened your conviction about the school, reference that moment. Do not brag. Do not list your accomplishments. Show, do not tell. Let the specificity of your writing demonstrate that you have thought deeply about what four years at Skidmore would actually look like.

Keep the letter to roughly 500 to 650 words, address it to your regional admissions representative if you know who that is, and submit it within a week or two of receiving your waitlist decision. Do not wait until April. Admissions officers form impressions of students who impress them first, and those impressions tend to stick.

Demonstrated interest matters at Skidmore in a way it does not at larger research universities like MIT or UVA. If you have not already attended a virtual information session or had a conversation with an admissions counselor, do so now. Reach out to your admissions representative with a thoughtful question. These touchpoints create a record of engagement that reinforces the message of your letter.

Ask your school counselor to make an advocacy call to Skidmore's admissions office. At a school of 2,700 undergraduates, the admissions staff is small and relationship-driven. When a counselor calls and confirms that Skidmore is the student's top choice and that the student will enroll if admitted, that information matters. Your counselor should present you consistently with the narrative in your letter and, if there are meaningful new developments, a significant award or a strong set of mid-year grades, deliver those updates directly. Third-party advocacy carries more credibility than self-promotion. If your counselor pushes back on making the call, push back harder. Advocacy is part of their job, and counselors at other schools will be making these calls.

Finally, if your senior year grades are strong, make sure your school has submitted an updated transcript. A strong finish reinforces your candidacy. A meaningful dip can work against you. Keep performing at the level that made you a competitive applicant in the first place.