<p>I guess it depends on where you are. I’m from the DC area and there’s a terrible reputation problem with WashU. Most people think it’s George Washington University or some school in DC, and just scoff at it thinking it’s just some average school nobody knows or cares. In reality they need to get their heads out of their asses because WashU is better than at leat half the Ivies.</p>
<p>^ in a way it’s kind of nice to know this. I’d rather have students attending the school because they really want to be there rather than attending the school because of an insatiable desire for status.</p>
<p>I meant free trips offered to GCs, from what I know, not students.</p>
<p>And though the published test scores are indeed high for WashU, the
kids accepted from our local high school are more across the board in
terms of scores, ranking, GPA. It’s simply not as hard to get into
WashU here as the numbers bear out. Agree or disagree, but it’s
the state of things here.</p>
<p>
Actually they were smart when they started the UAA, a conference for like minded academic institutions that are Division 3 in sports like WashU, Rochester, Carnegie Mellon, Brandeis,Case, Emory, NYU, U Chicago where academics comes first…The average Joe might not have heard of many of these schools but they are top flight schools.</p>
<p>gondalineNJ: My sense is that selectivity relative to other colleges has a geographic component. So east coast schools are more selective with their east coast applicants (since they get more of them) than with midwestern or west-coast kids, while midwestern schools may be less selective with coastal kids. I have to believe that yields vary by students’ geography owing to multiple factors, not the least of which is local perceptions of prestige. In order to guarantee a geographically diverse student body, colleges will use their past experience with local area yield rates, and be more or less selective in different states, and probably even in different schools within a state.</p>
<p>I am sorry that I triggered a debate on whether Washu is selective.
@ryan Are you a current student in Washu? What do you think of Washu is terms of its career center and employment rate? It is quite reasonable that the school isn’t very well-known on the coasts, but what if I want to have my first job in the mid-west? Are Washu applicants well received?</p>
<p>I am a current student, yes. Washu’s job placement is very good, despite it’s general lack of name recognition. I believe the statistic is that 97-98% of business school graduates who look for a job find one within a year. And these jobs are all across the country, not only in the Midwest.</p>
<p>My apologies for the double post, but I just wanted to clarify my last post. </p>
<p>According to here: <a href=“Employment Statistics | WashU Olin Business School”>Error;
<p>The statistic is 98% of B-school graduates looking for a job find one within 90 days of graduation, which is pretty good.</p>
<p>I see. Thank you for the link and for being so helpful!
I assume that you are a current Olin student and I know that our business school is awesome, but I am going BME and our engineering wasn’t as good as the other aspects of Washu( with BME the only exception probably). Therefore I was wondering the job placement for the eng school.</p>
<p>Oh no, I’m actually in the school of arts and sciences. I honestly have no clue why I thought you said you were thinking of the B-school. Whoops! Haha. Good thing I’m not in the Washu school of reading comprehension :P</p>
<p>Stats for engineering (and arts/sciences and sam fox) can be found here:
<a href=“Career Center - Students”>Career Center - Students;
<p>If you are having trouble opening the link (as I was), the placement rate for students looking for jobs was ~86%, but it is a bit unclear exactly what criteria were used.</p>
<p>It depends… To grad schools, no WashU is well known and considered top knotch. To employers, a degree from WashU is probably respected among those in the know especially at the top companies like BAML and JPMorganChase. However, does that mean they recruit there, not necessarily. Smaller companies, on the other hand might not respect a WashU degree as much due to ignorance.</p>
<p>Now here comes the hard part. You need to decide whether you can handle the blank stares that the average Joe will give you when you say you go to Wash U. Will that bother you? If it does than maybe you should look elsewhere. If you can handle it, then i would recommend WashU. I think any top 20 elite private gives students the same opportunities as long as they take advantage of the resources that they are provided with. You just have to decide if you are going to be okay with walkinig around Wisconsin or Alabama and having people think you go to either a state school or community college in Washington State</p>
<p>@redraider
Thank you. I am okay with the ignorance of average Joe because that is by no means the thing that matters.
I am sort of worried about your remark “To grad schools, no WashU is well known and considered top knotch”. Why is that the case?</p>
<p>@ryan
Thank you for the info!
Yes, I does have a problem opening this link. Just asking, should 86% be considered relatively low compared to that of olin?
PS I think Washu is website is really problematic; not only is it the slowest among all the schools that I have applied (I spent more than 15 mins opening the WUSTL pathway the day the results were out), but it also contains some deadlinks.</p>
<p>I think redraider meant “To grad schools, no. (In response to “Does Wash U have a reputation problem?”). Washu is well known and considered top notch.”</p>
<p>I’m not sure that 86% should be considered that low. The 86% number was an estimate I made based on provided data, and it is likely on the low side of the actual number. The other two schools listed had similar data, and I think that overall, washu has pretty good job placement.</p>
<p>Personally, I haven’t had much trouble with the website. In this case, It took a couple minutes to load, which was certainly unusual for me. That being said, I’m sure that the website feedback team (contact listed at: [Contact</a> | Washington University in St. Louis](<a href=“http://wustl.edu/contact/]Contact”>Contact - Washington University in St. Louis) ) would appreciate feedback regarding your problems.</p>
<p>tw23md—Absolutely, there are geographic/ regional/ local/ even hyper-local components here. To WashU’s credit, they’ve raised their profile within our community to the point that more kids seem to apply each year. I assume because the yield at our school is on the high side, the acceptance rates are thus favorable. I get the sense from reading other posts that the same may not be true for other area high schools, who might see lower acceptance rates even with large numbers of applications (extrapolating that the yield is low).</p>
<p>Anyone on an admissions panel will know Wash U. People who rely on the lousy US news rankings may not. People who know very little about what makes a college or university great may not know Wash U but Wash U has been known as an outstanding university for a long time. It has been aggressively advertising and recruiting applicants. I think that has diminished its standing rather than helped it. It is now also known as one the schools that floods juniors and seniors with pleas to apply. Since Wash U is targeting students it already knows it won’t accept, this strategy is flawed and it is unethical. When did it become a badge of distinction to be able to say you have turned town thousands of students and wasted their application fees?</p>
<p>I’m not certain that washu even markets significantly more aggressively than other school. While I’m aware that anecdotal stories are hardly evidence, I will say that WashU sent me less material than many other colleges.</p>
<p>Secondly, I apologize, but I don’t see how aggressive marketing campaigns are flawed and unethical. You say it targets students it knows it won’t accept - do you have a source for that? I have honestly no clue how a college knows it will not accept an applicant before it receives any info about said student. And even if that is the case, then I have yet to see evidence that it pursues that student with any degree of intensity. Finally, even if it does both of those things, I’m not sure it does it any more than many other schools. I realize Washu is infamous for it, but that doesn’t mean they do it at a rate a magnitude above its competitors.</p>
<p>D was admitted and will matriculate to Wash U in the fall. She did not receive an excessive amount of mail from Wash U. In fact, other schools not only sent more mail than Wash U - but one in particular actually sent a box full of “swag” to the parents! I received hat, shirt, pen, calendar, car decal. I was ready to send in a check that school the same day! But it wasn’t my decision, haha.</p>
<p>Our son is just finishing up his junior year of high school, and this is the number of email communications he has received from the most persistent colleges:</p>
<p>Columbia U – 16
Wash U – 15
Sarah Lawrence – 15
Brown Pre-College – 13
Case Western – 12
Swarthmore – 12
Rensselaer – 12
Clarkson – 12
Wash & Lee – 12
Wheaton --12
Minnesota – 12
Tulane – 11
Chicago – 11
Colorado at Boulder – 10
Colgate – 10
Boston U – 10
Missouri Science & Tech – 9
Regis – 9
Saint Louis – 9
Delaware – 9
Northeastern – 8
West Point – 8
Saint Mary’s of California – 8
Rice – 8
Rutgers – 8
Dartmouth – 8
Stevens institute – 7
Dayton – 7
Champlain – 7
Norwich – 7
Kansas – 7
Penn – 7
Duke – 6
Arizona Sate – 6
Kenyon – 6
Illinois – 6</p>
<p>SoCalDad,</p>
<p>How did these colleges find out about your son? My son is a pretty high-performing student. Some of his equivalently performing friends are getting mail from some of those top colleges, but he’s received nothing. Not all that important, except maybe a little bit for his ego. What gives?</p>