<p>^^^Most of those anecdotes involve Washington Univ. St. Louis. Since I live in Missouri, I know a lot of students who apply there, including many from last year. In only one case was a very strong student wait-listed. Although the student did make a visit to campus, he declined to fill out any of the merit scholarship applications, and did not even pretend to his guidance counselor that he was interested in the school. So, if I were to detail his extraordinary academic record, everyone on CC would say “There, I told you so!”, and perhaps that would be justified, but on the other hand, the admissions committee did guess correctly in this case.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I know a handful of very superior students–including my son–who were accepted, even though their records were worthy of application to any school in the country. All of them took the time to visit, to interview and to fill out merit application awards. A couple of them–not including my son–are attending.</p>
<p>I am not convinced there is a lot of merit to the rumors. However, I do believe they should be included in the list of schools that want to see considerable demonstrated interest.</p>
<p>Consolation, your son is in a bit of a gray area, in my opinion. None of us parents want to believe it, but there are actually a lot of students out there in this big country of ours with records like that. Don’t scrimp on applications to selective schools.</p>