<p>We were at WashU's open house last week with our son. He is very impressed with the campus and premed program if offers. He definitely will apply but not sure whether go for the ED or not. Here is his profile:</p>
<p>Academics: ACT 33 super score 35
GPA: 4.31
SAT II Math 800 Bio 790
Junior courses: AP Bio, AP EnvSci, AP Psych, AP Lit.
Hon. Math and Hon. Spanish. All As
Senior courses: AP Stats, AP CalcBC, AP Chem, AP Spanish
and another AP( but forgot the name)
Other than some school tutoring on math and Spanish plus some weekend volunteering work at the local food pantry. Most of his spare time is spent on club and varsity swimming. Even though his best times on the strongest events are right in the middle of the WashU current season's top times, we are told WashU does not have "slots". and the best coach can do is to "support" the application by bring his credentials to the admission office for an evaluation. </p>
<p>My son is not sure whether he would apply for ED or RD since WashU is his first campus tour (likely the best). It would be much helpful to chance him for ED and RD. thanks very much</p>
<p>Ultimately, ED vs. RD comes down to 2 things: finances and preferences. If finances might be an issue, then do not apply ED. It’s binding, and while you can technically get out of it if you can’t afford it, that doesn’t happen often, and you don’t want to spend thousands of dollars more than necessary. Next is preference. Obviously, only apply ED if you are 100% confident that you would go if accepted, regardless of where else you might be accepted.</p>
<p>His resume is obviously competitive. With the listed activities, it is hard to say much more than that.</p>
<p>If your son is still looking at other schools, it may be difficult to go with ED unless he really knows that WUSTL is the place he wants to be. Agree with Ryan that finances are another issue. If you foresee the need to look at financial aid packages, then applying ED to any school won’t allow you to so this, unless the you are accepted ED and then realize that the finances won’t work, in which case he can get out of an ED agreement.</p>
<p>BTW my son will be starting at WUSTL this fall- it’s a wonderful place, and I wish your son the best of luck if he decides on WUSTL.</p>
<p>Steve26, He is considering a few other schools: UChicago, Northwestern, JHU, Cornell, Dartmouth, Penn and Columbia. Some of which may be high reaches, but without trying, the chance is exactly zero. We plan to visit the campus of those places in July. But I have to say our WashU visit is excellent. The admission office did an excellent job on it. We all agree WashU is an excellent school especially for premed kids. We will be thrilled if my son can get in. The only two negative points: 1) the location of the school, St Louis is surprisingly depressing to us. Other than a few tourists near the Arch, middle of the week downtown is almost empty. 2). A little lack of name recognition outside the mid west region and medical field. But I assume things could change over time.</p>
<p>WashU has a reputation for admitting a large percentage ED, and then waiting to “cherry pick” off the wait list in order to be able to document very high yield (part of the USNWR ranking that WUSTL is climbing). So if you do not want to apply ED be prepared to demonstrate great interest when wait listed in order to gain acceptance. That would probably mean writing to your AO, calling, telling them it is your first choice, and convincing them you will come if admitted off the wait list.</p>
<p>For pre-med it is one of the top schools around, very well recognized with a good quality of undergraduate satisfaction. Competes with JHU. A much better choice than Cornell and WUSTL usually offers considerable merit aid.</p>
<p>PsychoDad10, he is still looking at other schools so far. But at this point, WashU looks really good if we balance out everything. I can see my son fit into the school very well, working hard while still enjoy all aspects of his college life. At this point the most important factor for us is to know the relative chances of get into any of schools on his list. These are all excellent schools and difficult to get in.</p>
Yeah. That’s just not true. Especially considering something like 3 of the past 4 years haven’t even utilized the waitlist.</p>
<p>For the record, something like 30-40% of the class comes from ED admits. That is very similar to schools in WashU’s peer group. But yes, you do have a greater chance of being accepted if you apply ED. That’s true for most schools too.</p>
<p>What are his times? Have you talked to the coach? Sectionals are good, but most of the kids that come in have NCSAs. If he doesn’t have atleast sectional (preferably NCSAs) cuts then don’t expect any athletic boost. My good friend was looking at washu and he said that the coach will go to NCSAs in Indy to recruit.</p>
<p>Cliffhanger- WUSTL is in Clayton, an upscale area of STL. The area is very nice. As with all cities there are some rough areas- unfortunately STL gets a bad rap sometimes because of East STL, which is in Illinois. As far as the name recognition, we face the same issue, especially when our friends ask why our son didn’t got to JHU- it would be nice to have more families like yours see WUSTL for what it is- an absolutely phenomenal school- the more of us there are the better the national name recognition, although I will add that those who really need to know about WUSTL already know its reputation,</p>
<p>desudesudesu: He has the Speedo Sectional cuts and just a bit off on the NCSA cuts( he has the bonus time cut though if that helps ) . Even though he is doing club swimming right now I don’t think he will make it to Indy this summer because LC practice is just not as intense with all the campus visit travel interruptions. I am almost certain he will be in Florida for Spring NCSA meet in 2014 given his improvement curve of the past few years. But that would be a bit late for application. He has been complaining about not pulling him back for a year-he is the youngest in his class-- not even meeting the cutoff date in the current home state. We talked to the coach about this last week. He recognizes that this is a disadvantage especially for the boys. If he cannot get some sort of support from the coach I see his WashU application is in jerpardy because between varsity and year-round club swimming, he has little time to do any meaningful ECs.</p>
<p>Don’t think like that! Swimming IS a meaningful EC. Roughly 75% of mine were about soccer, and I was accepted without even talking to the coach. Colleges want to see an applicant’s passions in the ECs, and if that is swimming, then that is fine.</p>
<p>Well I would go with the admissions office’s advice, “apply ED if washu is your FIRST CHOICE.” Go on your other visits and then ask yourself this question. I’m still not convinced that applying ED will make or break your application. If you would be accepted ED, most of the time you would probably be accosted RD too.</p>
<p>RyanMK: Thanks for the encouragement. Swimming is probably the hardest sports to play in high school (don’t mean to put down down soccer though:)). On top of that, there is little recognition by the school. Being conference champion and made to the state final was not even in the school news. So, it does require some passion and determination to stay on track. For four months each year, he has to get up at 4:50 in the freezing winter morning to practice for 2 hours and another 3 after school. The whole winter break for him is in the winter all day since freshmen. he has been skipping our holiday ski trips for past two years because of the swimming time conflict and fear of injuries. I hope all the sacrifice he made would finally get paid off with an acceptance letter from WashU.</p>
<p>WashU has been accused of “yield protection” by rejecting/wait-listing top RD applicants. At least in our local high school, which is very good, the data seems to somewhat support such accusation. Out of ~40 RD applicants in the last five years, ~30% accepted (typically students with middle to upper-middle stats), ~10% rejected (weaker or top of class applicants), and a whopping 60% wait-listed! The admission pattern for ~10 ED applicants was very different/“normal” however.</p>
<p>IMHO, WashU has great academics, particularly in biology related fields.</p>
<p>Ugh , cliffhanger, how dare you say swimming is harder than soccer?!?!</p>
<p>Just kidding I respect swimmers; they always have the best bodies and are in the best shape. I understand what it is like to be ignored - Iowa is definitely football country, and soccer simply falls by the wayside in most cases.</p>
<p>@PCHope</p>
<p>Unfortunately, anecdotes and small sample sizes make it hard to draw conclusions. It might be possible that the applicants weren’t “overqualified” for WashU, but maybe they just weren’t a good fit? Also, among qualified applicants, is a 1:2 accept:waitlist ratio really that bad? For example, Duke waitlists twice as many applicants as they accept, and Duke is more or less a peer of WashU.</p>
<p>^ I’d like to debunk the above allegation. This has been a topic discussed in many previous posts. I don’t think that there is any data to prove it, and anecdotal evidence doesn’t prove a thing. To begin with how does anyone know that they are an overqualified applicant? Is there any way to know the other 30000 applicants’ qualifications and how an individual stacks up? My son was accepted to WUSTL but rejected at some other top schools. Never did he claim bitterness. But he fit in at WUSTL, demonstrated his interest, and this was duly noted by the ADCOM. Best analogy I can make is that there was an elective class in my medical school that everyone wanted to take because it was perceived as being quite easy. However, the professor only allowed those students who really wanted to be in class to take the class. To this professor demonstrated interest in the course was more important than anyone’s credentials.</p>
<p>Cliffhanger - this is a great list of schools. Any/all would be great choices. What is his desire to swim in college? If that is important to him, ensure you check with all of the coaches. We had a very nasty interaction with the cross country coach at WUSL. I don’t know how representative that is of the coaching staff within the school more generally - it was a “D3 but wanting to be D1” attitude. If swimming is less of an issue he needs to go with his heart and where he feels most comfortable. I’m a little disenchanted with the east coast schools these days. The level of rarified air is a bit asphyxiating. I think the top mid western schools (WUSL, Northwestern, U Chicago, CWRU) are at the same level, but with much greater more inclusive attitude. Most importantly stay flexible and learn from your son! He will let you know what is right for him.</p>
<p>Also, I think that WUSL has huge name recognition. As do the other top midwestern schools. Don’t get trapped in an east coast “name” head game.</p>
<p>Steve26: Sorry to hear about your unpleasant encounter with the track and field coaches. Our experience is quite the opposite. The head swimming coach was very nice and seem to be content with the facts that 1) at WUSTL academics always comes first, 2) no “slots” are given to him for recruitment and 3) he has only limited voice in the admission process. </p>
<p>I totally agree with your assessment on the difference between east coast and mid west elite schools.</p>
<p>Steve26, I’m also sorry to hear about your encounter. I’m the parent of an incoming freshman who will be running xcountry, indoor and outdoor track. Thus far, the interactions have been very positive. Of course we are still very early in the journey. I was wondering if you would mind sharing any insights or advice based on your experiences, maybe with a private reply. Thanks so much. I would have reached out with a private post, but I’m new to CC and don’t qualify to send private posts as of yet.</p>
I respect swimmers; they always have the best bodies and are in the best shape. I understand what it is like to be ignored - Iowa is definitely football country, and soccer simply falls by the wayside in most cases.</p>