Columbia MAFN deadline (5/31) is much later than many other programs so the waiting list is understandably longer.
While you are at it, read this
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303772904577333680574993686.html
Schools often pad their waitlists to protect their "yield," or the proportion of accepted students who choose to attend. They can admit fewer students on the first pass, to maintain their aura of exclusivity, then move on to the waitlist if accepted students turn them down.
But for most students, being waitlisted is "not much better than a rejection," says Elizabeth Heaton, senior director of educational consulting at College Coach, an admissions consulting firm, and a former regional director of admissions at University of Pennsylvania.
Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh, Pa., admitted just six of the 5,003 applicants invited on to its waitlist last year. At Cornell University, in Ithaca, N.Y., not one of the 2,998 students offered a spot on last year's list was admitted.
"It's so hard to know what we're going to need," says Janet Lavin Rapelye, Princeton University's dean of admission.
Princeton, which accepted 2,095 students for a record-low 7.86% admission rate this year, offered 1,472 applicants places on its waitlist. In the past six years, it has taken as few as none from the list, or as many as 164.
Many colleges are reluctant to disclose the number of students on their waitlists. Harvard, which admitted a record-low 5.9% of applicants this year, doesn't release the size of its list. A university spokesman said Harvard accepted 31 from the waitlist last year, and between 49 and 228 in the four years prior to that.
Most schools know by May 1 who has accepted their initial offers of admission. They then turn to the waitlist to fill any remaining slots, a process that is supposed to wrap up by August 1, a deadline set by the National Association for College Admission Counseling. On average, 45% of students offered spots on a waitlist accept the offer, according to the Princeton Review.