I applied to WASHU ED2…I have letters from three of my family members…
-Uncle: alumni, donated $30k over the years, and did alumni interviews, has a scholarship with our name on it at washu
-cousin: alumni, does alumni interviews, was a tour guide
-cousins parents, did the parent alumni committee and interviewed students.
Will this help me at all?
Stats:
33 ACT
3.97 GPA
10 Dual enrollment classes
2 APs
Research with PHDs
Founded my own club related to aspiring doctors
Ambulance core volunteer
Varsity tennis
President of science honors society
NHS
History HS
Math HS
founded business that made $7K
Essays:
how washu supports women in medicine
how I overcame my anxiety relating to food allergies, and how i want to become an allergist to help others like me
I would not have sent the letters - I know you are trying to pull in legacy (they will have specifics on what constitutes that) but no one wants to be a part of pay to play, especially today after what happened the other year with people buying off coaches.
I think you’ll need to get in based on your own merits.
Interesting - most would have DE and AP reversed - are you sure it’s 10 DE? So you spent most your time in college.
You have a decent shot - they skew higher ED but don’t forget that includes athletes, etc.
You’re certainly right there and as long as you’ve done everything you can (short of trying to bribe your way in), you should feel good about your app - and as long as you have matches and safeties, you’ll get into a wonderful school.
But you’re qualified certainly for WUSTL. The issue is - so are many thousands of others that applied.
But relax and know you put it all out there and I wouldn’t be surprised if you receive good news.
Congratulations and you look like a great candidate. It would appear your family members are extremely familiar with the school and it admissions process.
They would be best positioned to understand the potential impact of sending their letters of recommendation. Clearly they are huge supporters of you and I am sure that their letters will likely help and certainly won’t hurt.
Wash U is extremely sensitive to yield, prideful of their history and sensitive to their alumni. All of this combined with your stellar record, LORs and expressed interest via ED should serve you well!
FYI I have no direct experience with Wash U but worth asking others who express opinions if they have interacted with the school to understand where they are coming from.
I applied to WASHU ED2…I have letters from three of my family members…
-Uncle: alumni, donated $30k over the years, and did alumni interviews, has a scholarship with our name on it at WashU
-cousin: alumni, does alumni interviews, was a tour guide
-cousins parents, did the parent alumni committee and interviewed students.
Will this help me at all?
Stats:
33 ACT
3.97 GPA
10 Dual enrollment classes
2 APs
Research with PHDs
Founded my own club related to aspiring doctors
Ambulance core volunteer
Varsity tennis
President of science honors society
NHS
History HS
Math HS
founded business that made $7K
Essays:
how WASHU supports women in medicine
how I overcame my anxiety relating to food allergies, and how i want to become an allergist to help others like me
Considering it seems like you have plenty of family connections to the school, and that it is relatively easy to get in ED (like 40% or something) I’d be very surprised if you got rejected. It also helps that JHU recently added ED2, since the schools are somewhat similar in the students that apply to each (though I assume JHU is a much more popular ED2 spot), so the pool won’t be as strong as it normally is.
Frankly, it seems like anyone within their stats range gets admitted ED to WashU. I spent my freshman year there and it’s definitely a good school, but it is literally the “Ivy reject” school. Everything about it feels superficial and forced, and there is absolutely no culture or spirit on campus. Not that it is the reason why I transferred, but it definitely feels good to go to a place that is a bit more “name brand”. There were also like 5 people I know of that transferred out last year, which should be a bit of a red flag considering it’s not that big of a school.
You definitely have a chance at Wash U. Your grades and standardized test score meet the bar, but honestly, the thing that would probably help you the most there would be if they are hoping for a big future donation from your uncle. The fact that he has donated 30K over the years is very nice, but you’re not his child, and in terms of donations, they’re interested in what they’re going to get from him going forward. So if your uncle is a big enough donor that he has a personal contact in the development office, he should reach out to them asap, and sweetly indicate that you’re his favorite niece, that he considers you as his child, how much you want to go there, and that it would make him, very, very happy for you to get in (especially if he implies that it would help him to want to make BIG future donations to them, like as part of his estate planning).
Would you please confirm that your 3.98 GPA is unweighted? Assuming it is, I think you have a 50/50 shot. From my experience, Washington U is a hair more difficult than Tufts ED. If that is a weighted GPA, regardless of the weighting, I am not optimistic.
You may know something I do not (beyond obvious % accepted which is not overly meaningful BTW), but have assisted 10 or so kids in the last two years from New England and Mid-Atlantic and ED1 Washington U often does not happen, but ED2 to Tufts often does. My experiences with actual students that you @derakiii33 should feel free to ignore.
Most difficult ED to least among the overlap schools -
It’s interesting that WUSTL heartily shares it’s stats - was 40% but now 30% ED and 11% regular. They state that the overall is 13% but seems like it would be higher with those two #s. But I guess hardly any are applying ED?
Tufts overall is 11% - but they don’t share ED/RD…I don’t think anyone does although someone put out a chart on a thread of all schools. Not sure where the data came from.
I guess the biggest difference but only recently is - Tufts remains need aware and is 2/3 full pay. WUSTL is now (recently) need blind
I hadn’t seen a list like that - so it’s interesting. I’m local to Vandy and it’s obviously a small sample size, but the kids I know who go - everyone is ED. My son was rejected RD. WL at WUSTL (for engineering) and not chosen off the WL. Yet got into higher rated Purdue with merit - didn’t go there either though.
Do you think those schools are tough in regards to ED - or just tough which carries to ED - meaning if a WUSTL is 13% overall or Tufts is 11%, they’re tough regardless.
Emory - also tough - but how does Oxford play into that? Does it make it easier?
It’s cool that you have actual experiences with all these schools which obviously helps form the valid opinions you have.
I do not see too many students apply to Oxford. It is easier, I know, but I know some people here have great things to say about it.
Those schools seem to make up the fairly affluent suburb list for kids who are great students but can’t quite reach the very top. Vanderbilt as of late might very well be the very top from an admissions difficulty perspective - which is why it holds the top spot.
That is an interesting perspective and I appreciate it. My sample size might be skewed but I have a hefty number of data points through my high school’s Naviance. Tufts appears to be slightly harder to get in as the admit rate from our school is lower than WashU’s, and the average GPA/test scores it takes to get into Tufts are higher than WashU’s. I myself was admitted to WashU RD but was rejected from Tufts RD. But like I said, there could be some skew in my impression since some high schools have better “relationship” AO at certain schools than others (for example, around 30% of applicants to UChicago get in, yet less than 15% of my high school’s applicants to Notre Dame are accepted).
However, the selectivity of a school is by no means a measure of how good a school is. WashU has a higher admit rate than both Tufts and Vanderbilt, yet I think that WashU has the best set of academic offerings out of those three. Tulane and Colby have single-digit admit rates yet I don’t think anyone holds them in the same regard as the schools we are discussing.
For fun, I just checked our Naviance (competitive public school outside of Boston), each school accepted 100% of the ED students included - shocking to me. Tufts, in particular, accepted 2 kids that were especially low (3.83 weighted with a 1230 and 4.46 weighted and a 1310). 4.0 weighted in our school kids go to Umass or equivalent. 4.5 kids go to Northeastern, Tulane, Miami, Lehighs. Not sure if that is helpful or meaningful.
Not saying you’re wrong - but it’s just so - well Felicity Huffman