<p>Having contacted the admissions office, I received a response email as followed:</p>
<p>"Thank you for your email and your continued interest in Washington University in St. Louis. </p>
<p>While it has been our hope to use the wait list, our current enrollment numbers indicate that it is unlikely we will be able to use the wait list this year. However we will be continually evaluating the situation in the coming days. We will notify you soon officially once a decision has been reached. We understand this is not the response you were hoping for and we sincerely thank you for your interest in Washington U. In any case, please let us know if we can be of any help to you in the future. </p>
<p>Please let us know if you have any questions. Thank you again for your patience and your interest in Washington U."</p>
<p>Thank you for your email and continued interest in Washington U. Since we last spoke the May 1 deadline for admitted students to respond to us has passed, and I have an update for you. This year our freshman class has been filled without going to the wait list. Letters were sent in the mail on Thursday May 6th releasing all of our students from the waitlist. </p>
<p>I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news. If Washington U remains a top choice for you in the future, I hope you will consider the option of transferring. If this is something you are interested in please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us. We would be happy to walk you through this process. </p>
<p>I wish you the very best of luck in your academic pursuits!</p>
<p>Sorry guys, we’ll all be getting that sad letter in the mail soon…</p>
<p>Yeap, I’m positive. One of my friends got accepted from eleven colleges, one of them being WUSTL, and he chose Harvard, which should have left us at least one spot on the waitlist. That being said, we can infer that they have overenrolled!</p>
<p>Sorry guys. I didn’t want to go to WUSTL that much so I’m indifferent to the news…</p>
<p>Every college over enrolls! They do not expect to get 100% positive acceptances of their offer. Not even Harvard has a 100% yield (although it is pretty high, hence the reason why they don’t have ED-even though they won’t admit that.) But if you want to blast WashU again by saying they over “enrolled”, well, you don’t understand statistics. What you really want to conjecture is if and how their yield changed. Who knows if their yield went down, but that information is still being tabulated.</p>
<p>Huh? How is saying they overenrolled “blasting” them? It just seems logical if they’re that sure they won’t be accepting people off the waitlist, then they’ve got the numbers they need or more - maybe their yield went up, who knows. I’m morecurious from a housing standpoint</p>
<p>PandoraHearts, it’s likely the yield went up. Colleges have formulas to assist in figuring out likely enrollment, and if they’re a little off the mark, due to yield or other factors, all heck can break loose. Regardless, your housing is guaranteed.</p>
<p>It’s clear, however, that the waitlist will not be opening up for class of 2014.</p>
<p>Good point about housing. Will just have to wait and see how it goes.</p>
<p>From the Chancellor’s report to the Board of Trustees last week,
" … enrollment deposits have come in much stronger than expected. Selected from an applicant pool of nearly 25,000, next years freshman class may be larger than usual …"</p>
<p>Pandora: sorry about the “blasting” comment. I have noticed way too often how WashU’d waitlist tactic has been criticized and even somewhat amazed that they’ve gotten such a negative reputation for having one, even though it’s what every college does.</p>
<p>Hmm wonder what their admission rate and yield rate are like this year… must have been much higher than expected for yield for them not to use the waitlist at all.
Multicultural Weekend probably played a large factor ;)</p>
<p>Each year admissions tries to project for the future. Past conversion rates are used, but unfortunately these are not always as accurate as anticipated. For the past few years an extra cushion has been built in to help smooth out unexpected spikes in acceptances. It appears that this year the cushion was a bit smaller than it could have been. WashU tries to keep each freshman class within predetermined parameters. You may be assured that this will be taken into consideration when determining initial acceptance numbers for next year. Admissions made its best effort, but it looks like the margin of error (statistical) was larger than expected. Hope this helps explain the situation a bit.</p>
<p>In answer to the question above: Yes, the yield (conversion) rate was quite a bit higher than expected.</p>
<p>I wonder the meaning of “next year’s freshman may be larger than expected”… Assuming from the Chancellor’s tone, does that mean we might have something like 1700 freashman this year?</p>
<p>Usually students drop off during the summer (getting off other waitlists and stuff) which is why it seems odd that they are so definitively NOT using the WL…I wonder how much over they are?</p>
<p>It will not be a couple of hundred; it will be much less than that. The final number will depend on summer melt (people under deposit that change their mind). You can be assured that housing will not be a problem. WashU will do everything possible to keep the freshman class in the 1400 to 1450 range (or as close as possible).</p>