If you were waitlisted to Northwestern, you may be wondering whether your chance of acceptance is now 0. Though you were not rejected, you’ll be competing against some of the best students in the nation for a spot in one of the best schools.

To put it simply, you’ll need to have strong and compelling information that makes you stand out amongst the rest of the application pool if you want a solid chance of getting off the waitlist.

Now, if you’re writing a waitlist letter, deferral letter, or LOCI, you’ll need to do it differently from what is usually expected. You’re not applying to any other random school; Northwestern attracts some of the brightest students. Thus, an argument for your GPA most probably won’t make a major impact on reversing your waitlist decision.

New and compelling information: that’s going to be the bread and butter of the waitlist letter. Let’s cover just exactly what to do about that below.

Table of Contents

1. What Should I Do if I Got Waitlisted to Northwestern?
2. How to Write a Northwestern Waitlist/Deferral/LOCI Letter.
   1. Formatting, Word Count, and General Rules.
   2. What Should I Write About in My Northwestern Waitlist/Deferral/LOCI Letter?
   3. What Does This New Information Say About Me?
   4. Don’t Forget to Follow Through! Show How Those Traits Make You a Great Fit!

What Should I Do if I Got Waitlisted to Northwestern?

As mentioned earlier, if you were waitlisted at Northwestern, you’re competing against some of the brightest students in the nation. You should also remember that you are part of that population. You’re also in the top 99 percentile of students. Thus, the admissions office most probably did not waitlist you because you were lacking in academic performance.

So, to get out of the waitlist, you will need to write a strong waitlist letter providing an update to the university that shows you are a good fit for the school.

Note that this is about new and compelling information.

Northwestern receives many waitlist essays reiterating the same thing: “I am very passionate about attending because…”, “My grades show that I am…”, and other repetitions of things already posted in the original application should not be added.

Here’s a good principle to follow: when everyone else is doing it in their application, it’s technically impossible to differentiate. The entire point of the waitlist process is to differentiate which students are a better fit.

Therefore, the focus of your Northwestern waitlist letter should be new information that you believe would make you a fantastic fit for Northwestern.

This means you’ll have to dig up your Northwestern application again and look for holes to fill in. Are there achievements that you’ve made that didn’t demonstrate the level of grit and determination you’ve had to manifest? Are there new events that occurred on that startup project you tried to create in your junior year? Look for these updates. Are there valuable character traits you could infer from them? Then, use those and show how they would contribute to the Northwestern community.

We’ll get into further details in the section below.

How to Write a Northwestern Waitlist/Deferral/LOCI Letter.

In this section, we’ll provide you with everything you need to know when writing your Northwestern waitlist letter. It will cover some of the basic ground rules and, more importantly, how to provide updates to the school in a manner that makes you stand out amongst the rest.

Note: if you decided you want to write a waitlist letter to Northwestern, we highly recommend getting at least a few hours of help from a professional college admissions advisor. For such competitive schools, you’ll need every advantage you can get.

Writing a waitlist letter typically takes a lot of time; this is especially true for students applying to top-tier schools with slim acceptance rates. To compete with highly intelligent students around the world, you’ll need to dedicate both time and effort to writing and revising your Northwestern waitlist letter to stand out.

Generally speaking, when it comes to somewhat competitive schools, we find that many students need to dedicate about 2-4 hours to writing their waitlist letters with a professional college admissions advisor. For very competitive schools like Northwestern, students may want to consider dedicating 5-7 hours with a professional advisor.

How much time you should spend with an advisor depends on your writing ability compared to the average applicant, how valid your topics are, and how much brainstorming/rewriting you’ll need to clean up your waitlist letter.

Formatting, Word Count, and General Rules.

The Northwestern waitlist letter should be submitted after April 15. Despite the letter having no word count limit, it is best to keep your writing as concise yet effective as possible. Do not make your writing necessarily verbose; but, don’t keep it too simple as to miss out on critical details either.

Also, it is useful to consider keeping your paragraphs well-spaced and short. If you have long blocks of text, it’s difficult for admissions officers to maintain thought throughout your letter. They may miss out on critical details as a result. So, keep your paragraphs short and easy to read. This ensures the admissions officers don’t skip over important factors which could make or break your chances.

What Should I Write About in My Northwestern Waitlist/Deferral/LOCI Letter?

When looking for updates to write about in your Northwestern waitlist letter, you’ll need to dig up some of the activities you’ve put in your previous application.

Look at these activities and see if there are any areas where you could provide new or compelling information that would help you stand out amongst everyone else. Remember, many students use extracurriculars to strengthen their application; but, they stop doing their activities once the admissions season ends. Writing about your continued involvement could help you stand out amongst everyone else and show your dedication to your passions.

If you don’t provide meaningful updates on the projects or extracurriculars you worked on, it could imply that you were one of the students who only used your extracurriculars to increase their chances of acceptance.

Okay, so let’s say you didn’t have any updates to talk about in your Northwestern waitlist essay because you suffered from senioritis. If you don’t know what to write about, it’s not the end of the world. However, you should know that you’ll be at a major disadvantage compared to the rest of the application pool.

If you don’t have any updates to write about in your Northwestern waitlist essay, we highly recommend speaking with a professional college admissions essay advisor. Don’t let a lack of preparation change your waitlist into a rejection.

What Does This New Information Say About Me?

One of the issues we come across here at PenningPapers is telling our clients what their work says about them. It’s common for students to tell admissions officers what they’ve done as an update to their application; however, it’s also important to talk about why those events and updates are important. What do they say about you? Why are they critical to your character? What would you think of someone who did the same thing you did?

It’s important to highlight the character traits that shine through your achievements because everyone’s individual achievements are unique. Sure, there are many who have won science competitions and there are many aspiring entrepreneurs who started their first small business. However, the character traits that constitute your own unique experiences and achievements may be different from those of another.

So, say you built an online marketing program that helped other young adults learn to build financial independence to escape their 9-5 jobs. Entrepreneurship may be something another Northwestern applicant has on their waitlist letter. So, the admissions officers may find it hard to differentiate between the two of you. What may be grit and determination in their entrepreneurial journey may actually be curiosity and perseverance for yourself.

It’s critical to be very specific about what your journey says about you. This helps the admissions office better distinguish you from the rest of the waitlist pool.

Don’t Forget to Follow Through! Show How Those Traits Make You a Great Fit!

If you have the space, make sure to follow through.

That means demonstrating how the character traits you’ve derived from your updated experiences and achievements actually make you a great fit for Northwestern.

If you believe your experience expanding your online business to generate passive income makes you a creative person who can think outside the box, then perhaps you would be a great fit for Northwestern’s diverse and inclusive community. Schools with strong business programs that also put diversity and inclusivity at the forefront of their missions are great for students with creative minds, especially for those who need a diverse environment to collaborate and find other fellow cofounders.

If you have the word count to show how the traits you derive from your updated experiences make you a great fit for Northwestern, you can increase your chances of acceptance through the waitlist process. Of course, there are never guarantees. After all, it’s no secret that you’ll be competing against some of the toughest and most intelligent students in the nation for a spot.

Thus, we would highly recommend speaking with at least one professional college admissions advisor. The right advisor can make a world of difference when increasing your chances of acceptance and beating out the competition.

As mentioned earlier in this guide, we highly recommend everyone, no matter who you are, get at least some professional help with the Northwestern waitlist letter. You’ll be competing against some of the best students in the nation and even the world; so, scheduling a free 30-minute phone consultation will go a long way in maximizing your admissions chances.