<p>Since the final decisions came out at Wash U, many kids and their parents are angry because they weren?t offered a spot. Most of those kids have the highest scores. Many said that Wash U was their safety and they didn?t get in but they were accepted at the Ivies. More than 22,000 applications came in to cover 1350 spots, if you were an admission officer, what would you do? Would be a better student a perfect score or a no so perfect score with other remarkable abilities?</p>
<p>None of the top colleges accept students based on test scores. They focus on the other factors of the package, and use the test scores to establish a general minimum threshold -- which may vary somewhat depending on context (example: a little more leeway may be given to recruited athlete or a kid from a disadvantaged background).</p>
<p>I am sorry there are kids who are smart enough to get into the Ivies yet fail to understand that basic fact about college admissions. </p>
<p>If I were a Wash U admissions officer, I wouldn't worry too much about the students waitlisted or rejected -- I'd be choosing the class based on whatever unique qualities each applicant brought to the table, and I'd figure that any kid with high test scores would have plenty of colleges to choose from in the end, even if they didn't make the cut at Wash. U.</p>
<p>I think what's interesting and, to some, disturbing about the fact that kids accepted at the Ivies get rejected or WL at Wash U is that while Wash U is a great school with a great reputation, most of us still don't consider it on the same level as the Ivies. So when this happens to more than a few kids, we're disturbed, and assume the Wash U Ad Comms don't understand where in the pecking order their school falls.</p>
<p>What will be interesting will be to see how their yield is. If their yield is good, I guess they selected correctly.</p>
<p>"I'd figure that any kid with high test scores would have plenty of colleges to choose from"
what if all of the colleges arrived at the same conclusion for these high - stat kids?</p>
<p>I'm sure their yield this year will be about the same as every other year -- about 34%. They know what they are doing, and they select with yield in mind. Which is precisely why they don't select the same students as the Ivies -- the criteria for what signals "fit" for WUSTL is probably very different for what might signify a fit for Harvard or Dartmouth. </p>
<p>Kids make a big mistake when the send out cookie cutter applications to multiple colleges, with a recitation of the same ECs and accomplishments for each -- which I am sure that many Ivy applicants who perceive WUSTL as a "safety" do. They are competing against kids who have carefully researched the offerings of WUSTL and are able to clearly telegraph why they want to attend WUSTL and what it is they offer.</p>
<p>I agree with you Calmom.</p>
<p>My one quibble would be that it's hard to customize when Wash U and many of the ivies (all but Brown -which will take it next year - and Columbia, I think) take the common application. Certainly, the customization comes in the form of the supplement, but then that's a customization that everyone does. </p>
<p>I wonder if Wash U tracks demonstrated interest?</p>
<p>Wash U does track demonstrated interest. My son's school strongly encourages all Wash U applicants to visit the campus and interview; their stats over the past few years show that applicants that don't visit, even those with very high stats, are likely to be waitlisted/rejected. ED is also a real advantage at Wash U - much easier to get in ED. Before everyone starts jumping all over me on this - I am talking about the experience of applicants from just this one high school.</p>
<p>There's no law that says that a student who uses the common app has to submit the same app everywhere. Obviously, it is not as convenient if the student keeps changing it -- but the point is that the student does have the option to highlight different things for different colleges. My daughter made a big point about her Russian stuff for most of her reach colleges -- she had two colleges that we believed to be safeties which didn't offer Russian.... and those particular apps de-emphasized Russian and focused on other activities and interests. </p>
<p>There are probably a lot of kids who got accepted who had Wash U as their top choice, perhaps thinking it was truly a reach and being stunned and overjoyed at their good fortune in getting in. You can bet that those kids poured their hearts out over their applications, and probably made it very clear in their apps that they had thoroughly researched WUSTL. I think those kids had an advantage over the ones who view WUSTL as a safety for an Ivy -- I mean, personally I feel that anyone who views WUSTL as a "safety" doesn't deserve to get in anyway. It's not "safety" territory for anyone-- so the student who has that view either hasn't done his research before applying or else has an oversized ego.<br>
.</p>
<p>I've been visiting CC since 2001. It has always been a given that Wash U makes above average efforts to attract applications through their extensive recruitment mailings. I know they are a fine academic institution, but have always thought just a little negatively of them for their marketing efforts which seem geared towards attracting a substantial number of applicants for purposes beyond just admitting a good class; i.e., attracting additional revenue through the admission fees (designed to cover marketing costs!) and additional applicant numbers to improve (reduce) their % admitted. I always thought that most who applied there would be well aware of their strategy and would be prepared for possible negative consequences. It is simply unrealistic to use any school as highly ranked as Wash U for a safety, regardless of stats.</p>
<p>While I gree with many of the sentiments above, they are also not always absolutely valid. We have a kid at WashU with large merit award as part of a Scholars program. Never visited, showed interest or researched WashU prior to applying RD for several Scholars programs. Used the common app - did not customize or do anything different for WashU. Fell in love with WashU during Scholars interview weekend and as a result chose WashU over higher rated school (with merit award). Very happy with decision feeling it was by far the best decision with the bwst outcome possible. An abarition? Possibly - but also shows that showing interest is not always the end all be all.</p>
<p>As always, your mileage may vary. It's dangerous to make sweeping generalizations about what the adcoms think.</p>
<p>Wash U has become known for Tufts syndrome. As more and more students seem to think that it's their safety school should they be rejected at Ivies, Wash U has become more and more leery of the possibility that students will reject it in favor of Ivies. Wash U wants students who want to attend Wash U and do not see it as a dumping ground for Ivy rejects-- which it is not.</p>
<p>ST2... I think that obviously your son had whatever it is that WUSTL wanted, even without having to tailor his application in any way. I don't doubt that it can happen -- something about his application struck them in the right way. But in his case it was luck that his application was a fit for their preferences and needs, since apparently he didn't research or make a special effort. When I talk about tailoring the app to the school, I don't mean that it is absolutely necessary - I just mean that it is going to help. </p>
<p>The problem I see again and again whenever this issue comes up, is that students don't seem to understand the basic idea that colleges choose the students THEY want to fill the college's needs -- it is not a contest where the "best" or most worthy applicant wins, it is simply a matter of colleges making choices to fit fairly arbitrary and shifting criteria, as the particular needs and desires of the colleges change. </p>
<p>College ad coms are like casting directors -- except that in this case, they are probably "casting" 3600 students to fill 1350 spots. If you want to land a role, it helps to try to find out as much as possible in advance about what the college is looking for.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Would be a better student a perfect score or a no so perfect score with other remarkable abilities?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I feel hurt that you think the waitlisted students with high scores were drones without "remarkable abilities." You are only speculating as to why Wash U waitlisted so many. How do you know for sure that we got waitlisted because we lack remarkable abilities? Just because my test scores are high doesn't automatically mean I don't have any other strengths, or that my test scores are my highest strength.
I think it's much more wise to assume that Wash U was simply looking for "something else." Whether that "something else" is demonstrated interest, likelihood of enrollment, down-to-earth character traits, etc is unknown.</p>
<p>The best way to gain prestige, short of large donations and good basketball teams, is by rejecting lots of highly qualified applicants. When the small-town val or sal goes to Would-B Prestige U. everyone applauds, and the student never returns, and all is forgotten. When he gets rejected at, the town and the school and the guidance counselor remember it for a long time - "Gee, that must be a good school....;))</p>
<p>Mallomarcookie:</p>
<p>WashU is very like the rest of the top schools: it tries to build a community of students with diverse interests. It has more highly qualified applicants than it can admit. Being rejected or waitlisted should by no means be construed as meaning that one was "not good enough" for WashU, but that one's strengths did not match exactly what WashU wanted in this particular admissions cycle. And usually, this is about ECs, geography, gender, etc... in other words, extra-academic factors largely outside an applicant's control.</p>
<p>Demonstrated interest is a tough one for me. My son applied all over the country and there is no way we could afford to visit many of these schools. With admit rates in the 20% range or lower it is hard to justify the $$ to visit until after he is accepted for long distance schools. Calls and emails, yes but visits are a tough one as an admit criteria for me.</p>
<p>I suspect the idea of looking for kids who really want to be there versus just a "safety is part of this but that can be very difficult to identify. Perhaps the FAFSA will tell them where you have applied though.</p>
<p>Mallomarcookie, you are missing the point. No one is saying that you don't have remarkable abilities -- we are saying that whatever your abilities are, you didn't have the combination that Wash U was looking for, this year -- or if you did, someone else who filled that niche was slightly better or appealed to the ad com more or just happened to come along first. </p>
<p>It is a selection process, not a rejection process, not a weighing of one candidate against another. </p>
<p>If I came to your house and brought a box with 100 books in it, and told you that you could keep 10 books -- you would sort through and pick the ones you like. It doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with the 90 you didn't like - it just means that you would have picked the 10 that seemed to appeal to most. If you really like reading poetry, you'd probably pick a different set of 10 books than someone else who really likes reading biographies. </p>
<p>If I was disappointed about the books that you chose, it would make no sense for me to argue that some other book was printed on equally high quality paper, or had a nicer cover, or had just as many pages. The objective "stats" have no bearing whatsoever on the content of the book or the reason for your choice. Maybe you chose a used book with a beat up cover because you saw that it was a first edition -- on the surface it looked pretty shabby next to all the others.... but you found something special about it that the other books didn't have. Maybe there's another first edition in the box, but you didn't realize it, or didn't care, because it was a novel written by an author you had never heard of, whereas the first edition you chose is by a poet you treasure. </p>
<p>You don't know. But the point is that it has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with SAT scores.</p>
<p>^Yep that was my entire point.</p>
<p>Screw WashU. </p>
<p>Combine merit aid to the rich and a postage budget that could fund a hundred need-based scholarships and what do you have -- the ultimate rankings whore.</p>
<p>I laughed every time I got their weekly mail dumps because if they were wasting their time to send it to me, clearly outside their targeted SATs, I figured they must have been sending them to anyone that could spell c-a-t if Vanna spotted them a free vowel.</p>
<p>A truly pathetic and misguided business plan ... that's working perfectly thanks to US News and the mega-egos of parents everywhere who want that status decal on the rear window of their SUV (imported, of course).</p>