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[euges116]

Question about waitlists, now that I've been waitlisted at my #2 school. (#1 rejected me, boo.)

Let's say UCSB (or any other school) made 6 offers, and have 10 people on the waitlist. If just one of those 6 people decline, does that mean they would give one offer to someone on the waitlist?

Or is it that UCSB (or any other school) made 6 offers, expecting 5 to accept. So that there has to be TWO declines of the offer for just one person on the waitlist to be accepted?

[malingered]

My understanding (and here I'm talking about PhD programs in the Humanities) is that different departments at different schools handle it differently (surprise surprise). Some will admit a number of students only, say, one greater than their target class size. This is rather conservative, however. I think in most situations at least a few of the initial admits would have to decline prior to the waitlist being tapped. I doubt a program would admit *only* as many students as they have funding packages unless the budgetary restrictions were extremely severe.