I got waitlisted from the University of Rochester. What should I do now?

You have landed at one of the more generous and transparent waitlist processes among selective private universities. Rochester is unusually forthcoming about how its waitlist works, what you can do, and what the historical numbers look like. That transparency is your advantage.

For the Class of 2029, Rochester offered 1,696 applicants a place on the waitlist. Of those, 934 accepted a spot. From that pool, 123 were ultimately admitted and enrolled, a waitlist acceptance rate of approximately 13.2%. Rochester's admissions office states that historically an average of 100 students have been admitted from the waitlist each year, though they are clear that this number varies widely and some years it has been much lower. Rochester also shares that roughly 15% of its total applicant pool receives a waitlist offer in a typical year. This is not a small slice of politely rejected applicants. It is a genuine enrollment management tool that the admissions office uses actively to complete each incoming class. The odds here are meaningfully better than at many of the other schools you likely applied to.

The first and most time-sensitive step: submit your Wait List Reply Form through the MyROC portal by April 17. This deadline is earlier than the standard May 1 national deposit deadline, so do not assume you have more time than you do. Rochester states explicitly that submitting the form after April 17 may jeopardize your chances of being admitted for the fall. Submit it now.
Commit to another school before May 1. Rochester is direct about this: put down an enrollment deposit at another institution since there is no guarantee that a spot will become available through the waitlist. Waitlist offers will most likely not come until after May 1. Choose the best school from those that admitted you and invest in that choice. If Rochester calls later, you can switch. You will lose the deposit, but every college in the country understands and accepts that process.

Rochester stands out among selective schools for explicitly inviting waitlisted students to submit additional materials through MyROC, including new grades, an additional recommendation, and other updates. This is a genuine invitation and you should take full advantage of it.

Start with your most recent transcript. If your first semester senior year grades are strong, make sure your school has sent them. Updated grades are the single most impactful new piece of information you can provide. Beyond grades, consider submitting an additional letter of recommendation. Rochester is one of the few selective schools that explicitly welcomes this from waitlisted students. If there is a teacher, mentor, research supervisor, or other adult who knows you well and can speak to aspects of your character and abilities that were not fully captured in your original application, this is the moment to ask them. The letter should add something new, not rehash what your original recommenders already said. A letter from someone who supervised a meaningful project or mentored you in a research setting will carry more weight than a generic character reference.

Also upload a focused statement of continued interest through MyROC. While Rochester does not use that phrase on their waitlist page, the invitation to submit additional materials is your opening. Your statement should make clear that you want to attend Rochester and explain, in concrete detail, why.

Rochester's academic identity is built around the Rochester Curriculum, an open curriculum with no required core classes where students choose a major and two clusters of courses in areas outside their major. This structure attracts students who are intellectually curious, self-directed, and drawn to designing their own education. Your statement should reflect that you understand this and have thought specifically about how you would use that flexibility. Reference specific departments, faculty, research opportunities, combined degree programs, or student organizations that connect to your interests. If you are drawn to Rochester's strength in optics, data science, political science, or the Eastman School of Music, explain how your particular academic goals intersect with what Rochester uniquely offers. Do not write generic sentences about collaborative culture or campus beauty. Show that you have thought specifically about what your life at Rochester would look like and that you cannot replicate that experience anywhere else. Keep the statement to roughly one page.

Finally, ask your school counselor to call your regional admissions representative at Rochester and advocate for you directly. With a class size of roughly 1,400 first-year students, the admissions office operates at a scale where individual advocacy matters. Your counselor should communicate that Rochester is your top choice, that you will attend if admitted, and that your senior year performance has been strong. Third-party advocacy carries more weight than self-promotion. If your counselor is reluctant to make the call, push back. Counselors at other schools will be making these calls, and a counselor who refuses is creating a competitive disadvantage.