<p>My son's getting a barrage of mail from WUSTL, and he doesn't need any convincing to keep it on his list of colleges to consider applying to, because his grandma (my mom) knows St. Louis well, and knows the academic reputation of WUSTL well. What we don't know is how important to WUSTL a student visit before applying is. We have received MANY invitations to participate in visit programs, but my son's schedule for summer is very committed already, and he never has a spring break (because he attends more than one school for his high school program, and the schools always have their spring breaks on different weeks). </p>
<p>Can a student really, truly have a decent shot at being admitted to WUSTL if he decides to apply, writes the essays and so forth, but has never visited the campus? My son has attended the regional information session by WUSTL here last fall, and has replied to emails or postcards before to stay on the WUSTL mailing list. But a visit looks out of the question before application season. </p>
<p>Any been-there, done-thats you have would be much appreciated.</p>
<p>I was admitted without visiting…all I did was join the mailing list. No regional informational session or anything. I think the whole interest thing is probably blown out of proportion, but then, again, who really knows?</p>
<p>I really don’t think visiting has any overly significant impact. It may be a slight boost but I highly doubt it is the deciding factor. In the decisions threads, there were quite a few people who displayed absolutely no interest in the school. If you are concerned about it, perhaps write a short note to be added to your file explaining that you were not able to visit but that you love the school. Include a few things you like about the school in this note as well and that should help compensate for not being able to visit. But as I said before, visiting probably has very little impact on the application.</p>
<p>I didn’t visit and I got in RD. Don’t worry about the interest thing. They understand that not everyone has the time or money to fly over. I did talk with a few professors through email to ask about how certain departments work, and I later got an email by the director of admissions saying they’d given him my name.</p>
<p>It’s kind of important to realize…they don’t want you to visit for them, it’s all for YOU. They just want to realize what WashU’s like, see the campus, meet people…it’s a kind of “for your own good” sort of thing, imo. Visiting during spring break wouldn’t really matter though anyway, admissions would have been made by then. Honestly during senior year, most teachers/schools are okay with a day or two (that’s all you need) missed for college visits.</p>
<p>It’d be interesting to know if they actually keep track of who visits the school and who doesn’t… It seems like that would be fairly difficult, since many visiting students might have a sibling at WashU and thus wouldn’t bother to schedule a tour or an “official” visit or anything. Anyway, visit if you can (especially when it gets to be time to decide on a college - visits can really help to distinguish between otherwise similar seeming schools); if not, don’t sweat it.</p>
<p>tokenadult, my son got accepted RD without visiting WashU. He also had a very high SAT, 2380, and straight A GPA when he applied. He did not apply for scholarship (I try hard to persuade him to do so but fail). From reading many comments on this board, he shall be a prime candidate for either rejection or waitlist. He ended up visiting during the Multicultural weekend and love the school. But too late since financially speaking, WashU is ending up to be one of the most expensive school for him to go to.</p>
<p>I agree with all the posters that visiting is not the key factor, and showing strong interest is probably only important if the student is otherwise right on the edge. A student certainly doesn’t want to appear indifferent either. For someone like Christian2’s son with excellent scores and grades (and presumably strong essay and EC’s), the odds are obviously high no matter what, unless that student gives Wash U the impression that he/she didn’t really care if they got in, they were intending to go HYSP. Then they might reject/waitlist them. (That’s a shame your son didn’t go for one of the scholarships Christian2, might have had a shot, although they are very competitive.)</p>
<p>Anyway, bottom line is that if the student has the paper credentials and then let’s Wash U know they really would like to be there through their essay or other means, an on site visit wouldn’t matter. What a visit would do is give the student both a first hand feel for the atmosphere of the place, especially if they could do a 2 day/1 night visit, and give them specifics for telling Wash U why they feel strongly about going there beyond just academic reputation.</p>
<p>Don Q - Most schools just make a “tic” in a student’s file that tracks the various kinds of contact they have made regarding the school, such as attending visits in the student’s city, visiting campus, making extra inquiries by e-mail, whatever. Whether or not this makes any difference or if they even look at it is another question, I don’t know. If I had to guess it would be as I say above, if trying to make those last few decisions between a group of borderline possible admits that showed obvious interest and those that did not make any other efforts, I would think they would favor the former. But that of course would only affect a few people.</p>
<p>Thanks for the interesting replies. Our family’s response to invitations to campus visits is the same for all colleges: we thank you for the invitation, but we can’t put this on our schedule or in our budget. I have previously been to pretty much every top college campus in the country on business trips when my children were little, so at least I know what the campuses look like. My son has buddies from summer programs at most top colleges around the country, so he has information sources besides the admission offices. It’s good to hear in this thread that an applicant can be considered interested enough in the college to be admitted without making a visit before the application.</p>
<p>Some colleges do track interest, others do not. Wash U does. But that does not mean you have to visit. You can show interest in other ways. Responding at all to the college solicitations shows interest. As does emailing departments with questions or even asking to be on the mailing list or going to a regional admissions information session. Other colleges do not even have you sign in when you visit.</p>
<p>well, im a transfer admitted to Wash.U and i never visited or had an interview whatsoever, the only contact i had with the school was with the application operator for like once…lol
so yeah i think you don’t necessary have to visit the campus, esp you guys know the campus so well and stuff, as you stated in your own post.
Best</p>
<p>The best, easiest and most lucrative way of showing interest is to apply for merit scholarships. Don’t forget about the Danforth (not on the web site as others are), but you have to be nominated at the start of your senior year in HS.</p>