<p>"College ad coms are like casting directors -- except that in this case, they are probably "casting" 3600 students to fill 1350 spots."</p>
<p>This is one of the best metaphors for selective college admissions I've seen. I love it. A tall willowy 20-year-old brunette is not going to be cast to play an ethnic 80-year-old grandma, or vice versa, no matter how many acting awards they have. </p>
<p>And BTW, Brown is not planning to accept the common ap next year. Or if it is, they haven't made it public.</p>
<p>If only the light would go on for more people. I recently had lunch with an adcom who offered some interesting thoughts. First at any top school like WashU - they could build a class, with the possible exception of the top 10& of those admitted, just out of the waitlist and have very little difference in the quality of the class. That, I believe shows the strength of the people they were not able to accomodate. </p>
<p>Second and possible more important, it is about building a community. Those who have visited WashU have seen the vibrancy of the campus. Student involvement, attitude and general campus atmosphere. That did not come about by pure chance. That took a lot of work in constructing/assembling a cohesive class out of a multitude of what to many may seem like disparate parts. Think of it as assembling a puzzle - all the little pieces that you wonder how they will fit and will they fit at all. But if you find the proper pieces and get them all to fit you can end up with a magnificent picture. Up to now WashU`seems to have mastered the art of finding the proper pieces and being able to assemble them to end up with the picture they want.</p>
<p>This is not to say that an equally quality picture could not have been assembled from the wait list - which it probably could have. Mostly it reflects on the quality of the people that apply there. The quality of the students on campus is equal to any top school in the country.</p>
<p>"Brown is considering the common application but will not take it this coming academic year, said Annie Cappuccino, senior associate director of admissions at Brown, in Providence, Rhode Island. “It’s not possible for us to think about it seriously this year,” she said, in part because of a planned change to the university’s software system. “I don’t want to comment beyond this year.”</p>
<p>I find the many posts complaining about WashU's waitlisting very irritating on several fronts. In many of these (certainly not all), the posters come across as arrogant and entitled (as in, "How dare WashU not accept me? They should have been grateful that someone as highly accomplished as I even deigned to apply."). I cannot help but wonder if these qualities were communicated in these individuals' applications and were viewed as off-putting despite the individuals' otherwise stellar stats.</p>
<p>As ST2 noted above, WashU cares very much about accepting students who contribute to creating a certain kind of community. One of the more attractive features of attending WashU is the feeling of being surrounded by students who are happy to be there. I don't think the school wants to accept students who are less than enthusiastic about going there in large part because they would detract from the experience of the majority of students at WashU who LOVE WashU.</p>
<p>I am always assured when I hear of colleges looking for a student who fits uniquely to their school. I am a parent of non-ivy league caliber children, but who are doing and will do great things. I commend all of you that have ivy league caliber students, but stats are not everything. I know many of these students have the whole package and that is great, but somtimes not having the whole package brings a another dimension that can be valuable. </p>
<p>I have had concerns over the past few years for both schools and students where stats are the primary indicators. First we have students who cannot understand why they are rejected somewhere when the are at the top of the stat "mountain". And we have schools who will have very narrow personality types and a very skewed environment. I think this will breed extrememly bright students out of touch with reality and schools communities out of balance.</p>
<p>My point above was that WashU is looking for pieces of a mosaic. Not students who uniquely fit WashU. I am not sure that there is such a student. Most WashU students could fit in at multiple schools and also vice versa. That is the beauty of their the student body. They try to include a little bit of everything - so students on campus have the opportunity to experience a wide variety of classmates. Now picking the right candidates to make up the mosaic - that obviously is no easy task. Do the adcoms always make the right individual choices - probably not. Should some who were waitlisted been admitted - very possibly. But on the other hand, overall they seem to do a pretty good job in assembling the desired mosaic year after year. That becomes quite obvious if you spend some time on campus and experience the atmosphere.</p>
<p>WUSTL has done pretty well by itself the past few years, and I certainly find it hard to criticize whatever it's doing to achieve that -- marketing or admissions strategy.</p>
<p>And boo-hoo-hoo-hoo for all the arrogant kids who thought it was their safety school and weren't accepted. Maybe I'll shed a real tear or two if I hear of some wonderful kid who managed not to apply to any college that DID accept him. In my experience that's extremely rare, and (apologies to andi and her family) requires BOTH multiple errors in judgment on the part of the kid, the school, and the parents, AND some horrible luck.</p>
<p>^^^Although selectivity is still one of the US news markers, yield no longer is. Right? So much for the "ratings whore" theory of college admissions. That said, what I can't figure out is why Wash U waitlists so many, rather than rejecting at least some. Nine or 10 kids from my son's school applied this year, and not a single one was rejected outright. </p>
<p>And finally, a plug for Wash U. Please don't confuse the frenzied and somewhat perplexing efforts of its marketing and admissions departments with the quality of the education students get there. It really is excellent.</p>
<p>why waitlist? because WashU is concerned about yield. Not how many students it accepts vs. how many apply but how many students accept WashU after it admits them. This is where Tufts syndrome applies. So, given that it can admit fewer students than are qualified to attend, and given that it is concerned that some of the admitted students will decide to matriculate elsewhere, it makes sense for WashU to maintain a long waitlist.</p>
<p>For all the scorn heaped on WashU's marketing, I do believe it has paid off in terms of student quality. It is indeed an excellent college.</p>
<p>^^^I understand Wash U's general concern with avoiding admitting a ton of kids who will choose Ivies over it, but I still don't get precisely why Wash U is SO obsessed with yield. US News no longer collects and reports data on yield or factors it into the college ratings, so Wash U's preoccupation with yield is not rankings-driven.</p>
<p>All colleges are focused on yield because it strengthens the level of control they have over building their class.</p>
<p>If 50% of the kids you admit actually come, then you have a lot more sense of what your class is going to look like than if only 20% come. When you are building a diverse community that's important -- it isn't going to help that you admit X number of students to fill a certain niche if none of them show up. </p>
<p>Good yield prediction also maximizes economic resources. To the extent that the college can figure out exactly how many dollars of merit aid it needs to offer in order to attract the students it wants, and can offer exactly that amount but no more to correctly targeted students, money will be saved.</p>
<p>As I've said on another thread, yield here does not mean the same thing as what's on USN&WR. To amplify on Calmom's post, a college has to be concerned about yield because it has to worry about housing. Admit too many and you end up with very disgruntled students who have to be housed three in rooms meant for 2; or it can be very expensive if you need to put them up in hotels. Admit too few and you are left with empty rooms. This is particularly true of colleges whose admitted students may opt to go somewhere else. So what to do? Use the waitlist extensively. This allows the college to build the class it wants and to control how many students will actually attend.</p>
<p>Thanks, marite and calmom, for those explanations, which certainly make sense.</p>
<p>So I guess we can conclude that what those who cry that Wash U is pathologically obsessed with yield are really saying is that upstart Wash U just "does not know its rightful place" in the constellation of selective schools.</p>
<p>But I want to add that I think Wash U could outright reject at least a portion of the kids it waitlists and still control its enrollment. At least at our school (a sample of one), a number of the students who were waitlisted have no realistic chance of coming off the waitlist.</p>
<p>
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So I guess we can conclude that what those who cry that Wash U is pathologically obsessed with yield are really saying is that upstart Wash U just "does not know its rightful place" in the constellation of selective schools.
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<p>From VeryHappy, Post #3:</p>
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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>I don't know how large the WashU waitlist is. I believe I read on CC that Harvard had a waitlist in the high hundreds a few years ago and admitted only a handful.
Sometimes, waitlists are used the same way Harvard handles deferrals from SCEA: to indicate to the student that the student is highly admissible rather than as a sign that the student has a realistic chance of getting admitted. But I could be wrong about WashU.</p>