<p>After reviewing the thread listing the credentials of all those accepted, waitlisted, and rejected, I am surprised that no one has yet noticed, or at least mentioned, the overriding factor. All else being equal, the main factor in obtaining an acceptance was your answer to one simple question Did you file for financial aid? It is quite statistically significant.</p>
<p>I’m almost certain that WUSTL is need blind at least for US residents</p>
<p>I never thought of that until you brought it up. Pretty much all of the schools I applied to (all in the top 30 except BC, which is need-blind too) are need-blind but I just looked up Wash U and saw that it wasn’t. Is it the only US News T20 school that isn’t need-blind?! Weird.</p>
<p>I applied for aid and got in, as did my friends.</p>
<p>Wash U isn’t need-blind.</p>
<p>i applied for aid and still got in</p>
<p>If you look through the entire Results thread you see that a good amount that applied for aid got in.</p>
<p>Wow that really puts a damper on things for me. I got in and I didn’t apply for FA (I didn’t know Wash U isn’t need blind though… I just knew I wouldn’t get anything). I thought that Wash U did this elaborate thing where they picked people based on who they thought would fit in there and that I had some special quality that made me right for WashU (many people think I have a great chance at Ivies and I’ve heard WashU waitlists people who are qualified to get into the Ivies). Especially since I got deferred from Brown, I’ve been pretty anti-Ivy. I guess what I’ve learned from all of this is that college admissions are arbitrary in a sense (not like randomly picked from a hat, but whether you’re what that particular school is looking for) and there are many schools that can give me a quality education. /End rant/</p>
<p>Many of the accepted students who don’t need financial aid also have great stats (as do many non-accepted students, but not everyone can get in). </p>
<p>The one thing that Freakonomics taught me is that just because two things seem to go together (in this case an acceptance and no need for FA) it does not mean that there is a causality. Many of the accepted kids in the upper income brackets have good resources to raise their stats, participate in a bunch of activities, and put together a good app, thus helping their chances.</p>
<p>Sure they may not be need-blind, but that does not mean it has to the dominant factor.</p>
<p>My son was accepted and applied for financial aid. I just briefly re-looked at the Decisions thread. There were a lot of people who applied for financial aid and were still accepted. I don’t see the elephant. :o</p>
<p>Apparently many posters don’t understand what a positive correlation is, as contrasted with an absolute rule. The OP didn’t suggest that applying for financial aid precluded an acceptance letter, but rather that there was a relationship between not applying for aid and being accepted. Therefore, any arguments that “X and Y users applied for aid and were accepted” are completely invalid anecdotes. </p>
<p>No one should claim that they can answer this question without a rigorous analysis of the infor we have.</p>
<p>I didn’t apply for any aid, and I was accepted. Dunno if it’s important.</p>
<p>SimpleLife - I looked at your son’s stats and they are exemplary (congratulations!). As I stated above, all other things being equal … . Very few kids have stats that match your son’s. Furthermore, an on-campus interview the fall of his junior year obviously showed admissions his interest.</p>
<p>The point is that the OP made it sound as if it were a much more significant factor than it is. She writes that: “All else being equal, the main factor in obtaining an acceptance was your answer to one simple question – Did you file for financial aid?”
Considering that all else is equal, the question of financial aid stands as the SINGLE remaining factor, and therefore (admittedly unfairly, but then again WUSTL is not as wealthy as other institutions) puts the wealthier, but otherwise identical, candidate through. This is much different than taking a wealthy 2200 over a poor 2300…
My argument isn’t absolute of course–a rigorous analysis of data that we quite frankly do not have would have to be made, as Somnambulant pointed out.</p>
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<p>And just as I do not have a rigorous analysis, neither does the OP. A scan of a results thread on CC is so limited and not necessarily representative of the 23000 (or w/e it is) apps.</p>
<p>The “invalid anecdotes” were completely valid responses to the original post, which took a few dozen cases and jumped to a pretty absolute conclusion.</p>
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<p>I never said that he has done a “rigorous analysis,” because he hasn’t. None of us can using CC; we have little knowledge about the general applicant pool other than a relative small number of anonymous posters on a self-selecting website.</p>
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<p>Firstly, his conclusion wasn’t absolute: the OP himself wrote that the trend he observed was “statistically significant,” not a steadfast rule. </p>
<p>More importantly though, the OP used anecdotal evidence to come to a generalization about the admissions process, and in pointing out his error, other users committed the same logical fallacy. These users are just as wrong as the OP.</p>
<p>Look, I have no dog in this fight. I am helping to explain to kids who got waitlisted (and some who got rejected) that, as a school that is not need-blind, WashU will pick the kid who is full-paying more often than not, all other factors being equal. No statistics are required for that unless you want to argue that WashU’s status as not need-blind has no relevance whatsoever. Some kids did not realize this fact.</p>
<p>I think our main issue was the claim that all else being equal, FA was the main factor. I still do not think the anecdotes were invalid, nor were the posters make the same mistake. The claim was made that in this small sample, FA was very important; we merely countered that in this small sample there were numerous counter examples.</p>
<p>ccuser, here’s what I’ve gathered from the first two pages: out of the 8 people that didn’t apply for aid, 7 were accepted and 1 was waitlisted. Out of the 11 people who applied for aid, 5 were waitlisted and 6 were accepted. </p>
<p>So if we were going to assume that these data are representative of the general applicant pool, the probability of acceptance given that one didn’t file for aid is much higher than the probability of acceptance given that one did file for aid. </p>
<p>Again, I’m not claiming that these data prove anything, I’m just saying that his argument was being criticized in the wrong way.</p>
<p>@surprised, this point was already made but you cannot merely say a hypothetical where all other things are equal. There are dozens of factors that go into the decision. If 51% of students are female, yes, all else equal a male candidate might get accepted. However, two candidates are never identical. Two people on CC with a 2350 are not automatically equals (I know you didn’t claim this. I just do not think it is wise for waitlisted or future applicants to try to justify the decision; it is impossible, we are not admission officers. Pinning it on any one thing would provide false comfort.</p>
<p>@somnambulant, that is a very fair point. What I was saying earlier is just that the typical applicant who doesn’t apply for FA may also have the resources to put together a solid application (tutoring for tests, more activities available, etc). But yes, it does look like the trend is in the OP’s favor.</p>