<p>Don't fret... I went to Rice U. We do suffer something of the same lack of name recognition out of region (I am from St. Louis, so I know all about it. ;). But grad schools and employers and any educated person in academia will recognize Rice or Wash U as great schools. People always pop up and surprise you by being impressed about your school when you aren't sure if they will know about it or not. I wouldn't worry too much about the barber not knowing it!</p>
<p>i didn't hear of wustl until they sent me mail. but the name isn't always a good thing. at schools with a name the atmosphere can sometimes be cutthroat b/c they have to keep their rep. and the quality of education will be the same--it's really what we make it. but going to a school people haven't exactly heard of is kinda cool b/c then you can tell them about it and why it's such a good school. you'll feel so unique (i love that). only drag is the name... washington--sounds too much like washington state. so you have to add the in st. louis, and it just makes the name so long. anyways, just trying to make this board have more posts.</p>
<p>adding on to my previous entry... washington university in st. louis is under the top college category on this cc thing. awesome. one of about 15ish.</p>
<p>i live in Utah and had no idea about the school until they started sending me endless amounts of mail. but once i got way interested in it and told all my friends and family back east - everyone knew at least 3 people who went/go there and loved it. Princeton review i think (something equally as important, if not them) ranked it a completely underrated school.</p>
<p>i got lots of mail from them too and i looked them up on Princeton review, and college board and wentt o the website and was like wow that seems like a cool plac, and i kno this girl that was gonna go there last year but changed her mind at the last minute, she said it was gorgeous tho</p>
<p>even if employers dont know about it, if you go somewhere else for grad school, undergrad doesnt even matter. regardless, i agree with that statement that educated people will know of it</p>
<p>actually i like how it's not as well-known as other schools, it kinda takes away from the cutthroat/intimidating environment of other prestigious colleges, like the Ivy Leagues.</p>
<p>i'll say this, supposedly WashU is supposed to have a "good" engineering program, but my father (who has been an engineer for over 30 years) had never heard of it until our neighbor went there two years ago. additionally, i asked him if any of his other contacts within academia had heard of it/respected it, and the consensus was that they saw it as good, but not great. maybe it's different for liberal arts, but if you are going for liberal arts, you would probably aim for a more liberal arts-oriented school. so take what you wish from this data, but it convinced me not to apply.</p>
<p>I think Wash U's engineering school is good, too-but not excellent. Similarly to yarrr, my father has worked in chemical engineering/busniess for about 30 yrs and said his company does not recruit from Wash U.</p>