<p>I've seen posts on this site and elsewhere of people asking to chance them for WashU and other schools. </p>
<p>No one can argue that achieving the academic standards to get into WashU is tough. But everyone (myself included back in high school) seem to think of the college admissions process as purely academic qualifications (ie high GPA, SATs, ECs, etc.). I'm here to tell any high schoolers reading this that before you decide where you want go to school, don't look at just academic prestige, think about how much you fit in the campus community and how much this school adds value to your goals. Obviously you won't have your whole life planned ahead of you, but that's no excuse to jump in blind; at least have some sort of idea.</p>
<p>I made the mistake of choosing WashU based purely on prestige and now I know it was a huge mistake. I didn't consider carefully what kind of person I am or what I want to achieve, and when I did get myself together, I found WashU to be a poor choice for me and it was too late to transfer out (cost of transferring wasn't worth it at that point). The ironic part is before college, a good friend of mine and I both applied to WashU but only I got in. I was happy but my friend was disappointed because he ultimately had to settle for our local state school (which I also got into). Fast forward 3 years: he's having a much better time there than I ever had in WashU.</p>
<p>It's too late for me to take back my decision but I want to share this detail so you all don't make the same mistake.</p>
<p>Bear in mind, that I do acknowledge WashU is a great school so I hope this doesn't offend anyone. This thread is just me giving my 2 cents on choosing a college. </p>
<p>I agree FIT is very important in choosing a university. The cultures differ from university to university. Do you want to be part of an urban, rural, collabortive, highly competitive (individualistic environment), large, small, conservative/centered or liberal setting, etc. So yes, FIT is important and it goes both ways. These universities read your essays to see if you fit their culture as well. Afterall they want you to be happy and happy students are successful students. That is what FIT is all about. So yes, I agree don’t just choose the university just because of its high ranking. :)</p>
<p>I am sorry that WashU didn’t turn out to be such a great fit for you. I know it made a huge difference when we visited. At the time we were only looking at East Coast schools, and my son could not have made the decision he did without getting the sense of what it would be like to attend a school in a city. I understand it is logistically impossible for every student to tour every campus they want to apply to, but if you don’t do your due diligence ahead of time, you can’t really blame anything else but yourself for an awkward result.</p>
<p>I doubt that the OP will come back to elaborate on why WUSTL was not a good fit for her but would really like to know more of the details. Any other experiences anyone would like to share?</p>
I would argue that anyone spending more than a few minutes on CC would see numerous references to how important fit is. True, if you only look at the What Are My Chances thread and posts then people are focused on stats, but that is because that is what the OP is asking.</p>
<p>My guess, and it is only a guess based on the statement
is that the OP would rather have been at a school with somewhat less academic pressure so that they could party more, and/or that there were bigger time sports and that kind of thing. Just speculation of course, not all state schools have big time sports. But I found that statement telling.</p>