Johns Hopkins University is a highly-respective and equally selective private research university that has soared in selectiveness in recent years. Most recently, for the Class of 2029, the first-year acceptance rate was a little over 4%.
One of the ways that Johns Hopkins, or JHU, sustains such a low acceptance rate is by leaning on a waitlist to cover any gaps in their yield calculations. If too few students accept their offer of admission, JHU can go to the waitlist to fill the class in with equally driven and exceptional students. Unfortunately for students on the waitlist, though, they don’t have to use it nearly as often as would be necessary to make the waitlist a meaningful step towards acceptance.
For the fall of 2024, JHU offered 2,374 first-year applicants a spot on the waitlist, which was about 5% of all applicants and is only a little below the total number of admitted students. Of the students who received an offer to join the waitlist, 1,614 chose to join the waiting list. Only 30, or 1.85%, were eventually admitted. One year earlier, the numbers weren’t too different. Johns Hopkins offered about the same number of students, 2,478, a spot on the waitlist, and nearly the same number agreed to join, 1,748. That year, though, twice as many were eventually accepted: 71.
The higher waitlist acceptance rate of 4% had nothing to do with how strong the students on the waitlist were. It wasn’t because JHU liked the waitlist pool better that year. Instead, it was entirely because there were more spaces left open in the class after the May 1 enrollment deadline for new first-years. It was, ultimately, a matter of chance.
If you have received a waitlist decision from JHU, you do still have a chance of getting in — but it isn’t a good one. The only way to strengthen your position is to take measured action that strengthens your application. JHU admissions goes to the waitlist if there are spots that they need to fill after the May 1 first-year decision date. You can’t control whether there will be a space for you to fill, but you can make sure that your application is one of the first they look at should such an opportunity present itself.
This post is all about setting you up for that important moment.
We help strong students get in off of low-odds waitlists. Contact us to learn more.
Once you have received a waitlist decision from JHU, there are four steps that you need to take to strengthen your application and push towards an acceptance.
Step One: Join the Waitlist
The first thing you need to do is probably obvious: you need to actually join the JHU waitlist. The only thing that they require is that you complete the Waitlist Reply Form that you received along with your waitlist notification.
The JHU waitlist is not ranked, so don’t freak out if it takes you a couple of weeks to decide whether you want to bet on the waitlist. Take a bit of time, consider your options and how willing you are to manage uncertainty, and then join the JHU waitlist.
Step Two: Commit to a College
Once you have submitted the Waitlist Reply Form, you need to line up a backup option. As we’ve laid out, the odds of getting into JHU off of the waitlist are extremely long. You should never simply sit on the waitlist and hope, and applying to colleges again as a first-year next year is extremely unlikely to create better results. Instead, you need to commit to a college that you were accepted by — even if it isn’t a dream school.
If you have an acceptance from a second choice college, awesome. If you don’t, commit to the best option you do have. Submit the enrollment agreement, pay the deposit, and relax in the fact that you are, in fact, into college. If you are eventually accepted by JHU and decide to enroll, you will forfeit the deposit when you pull out of your second choice school. Call that the price of rolling the waitlist dice.
Step Three: Update Johns Hopkins
Once you have committed to a college as back-up, you need to update JHU. The university only requires that you submit the Waitlist Response Form, but they do allow you to do more than that. And, since it’s allowed, that really means that you have to do it if you want to get in.
JHU allows waitlist students to send updates you would like to add to your application,” but they also caution students on the waitlist to make absolutely sure that whatever they submit “will contribute in a substantive way,” to their re-assessment of you as an applicant or “provide new information.”
There are three types of updates, in particular, that JHU welcomes.
Updated Transcript: We highly recommend that you ask your school to submit a mid-term updated transcript to JHU admissions. The final transcript should also be sent after graduation if the waitlist is not already closed.
Updated Resume: You also need to send admissions an updated version of your resume, specifically highlighting new developments and experiences. This resume should be only one page, and be formatting using a professional template. There are good free templates that come with basically every word processing program, so there is zero excuse to have a messy and overly-long resume.
Letter of Continued Interest: The Letter of Continued Interest, or LOCI, is an extremely important piece of your waitlist follow-up. This letter is literally a letter, and you need to submit it to the regional admissions counselor assigned to your region. A strong LOCI is one page with size 12-pt font and standard margins, and it has four parts. You’ll make the letter your own, but each of these parts absolutely must be present.
Opening: The letter should start with “Dear” and the name of your regional admissions counselor. Below that, you need a short introductory paragraph that states your name, status as a waitlisted student, and you prospective major at JHU. Next, you need to state in clear terms that you will enroll if accepted, and that JHU remains your first choice school. Saying this is not binding, but it is necessary. JHU will only admit students off of the waitlist who they are certain will enroll. End this opening by summarizing the purpose of this letter. Namely, to reinforce your interest in JHU and to provide substantive updates to your application.
Update: We like to go right from the intro into the update, because showing JHU that you’ve continued to work hard and excel since submitting your application is crucial to presenting a strong case for admission off of the waitlist. Aim to include 2-4 substantive updates here. These could include new awards, recognitions, or leadership rolls, updates from a project you’ve been pursuing that is related to your prospective area of study, or information about a community or club commitment that has grown or developed since you last told them about it. You could also include information here about upcoming summer commitments, especially if you’ve secured a job or internship. Showing that you are continuing to work hard and strive toward your dreams is important, and this is the place to do that.
Reinforce: Next, you need to tie your updates to what you love about JHU, both in the classroom and in the broader community. Don’t simply repeat what you wrote in your application. Instead, offer fresh insight into what draws you to JHU, whether it is the opportunity to work with a particular professor, learn in a lab, or support the JHU community in a meaningful initiative.
Close: Remember that this letter needs to be no more than one single page, so you’re probably pretty close to the maximum length already. Close with a short paragraph stating, again, that you will enroll if accepted, thanking the regional representative for their time, and expressing your hope that you’ll bonding with or celebrating alongside the Class of 2030 this fall.
Once this letter is done, it’s important to edit and submit. All updates, JHU admissions says, “should be sent to your regional admissions counselor. Include your full name, birth date, school name, and a note that the materials are to be used as a waitlist update on any materials you send.” There are things they do not want you to send, too, especially supplemental letters of recommendation, papers and projects, slideshows about how awesome you are, or research or writing samples.
Step Four: Wait it out.
The hardest part of the JHU waitlist process may well be the waiting. You’ve worked so hard, and now you’re stuck watching the days tick by all over again until, at minimum, the first week of May. While you can try to assuage your anxiety with a visit to campus, there are not special opportunities tailored to waitlisted students and waitlisted students are not given interviews or meetings with admissions.
They will also not tell you why you were waitlisted, and questioning them in-person, over the phone, or over email is not received well. We advise students to accept that they have done everything they can and embrace senior spring — but also keep your grades up. If JHU sees a slip, they are liable to revoke a waitlist offer of admission even after sending it your way.
Being on a waitlist can make students feel powerless. We put them back in the driver’s seat. Email us to learn more.