<p>I don’t like how admissions continue to send students pamphlet after pamphlet every month. I admit that’s how I first became interested in WashU, but by the end the big brochures began to become a turn off, especially that phone book sized course catalog.</p>
<p>Yeah… just wait till you graduate and it’s a monthly letter asking for $$…</p>
<p>With a very high percent of alumni as regular donors. Must be doing something right.</p>
<p>oh definitely, I absolutely loved WashU and am happy to donate</p>
<p>laurezer - Love that attitude. Hooked for life and happy about it, can’t beat that.</p>
<p>huhhh I’m actually a fan of the course catalogs. Haha.</p>
<p>Picked up the new one today.</p>
<p>Maybe I’m just old fashioned by I actually like turning the pages to look at course listings instead of browsing through WebStac.</p>
<p>Yeah, I keep looking at the one they sent me a while back. I’ve highlighted every class that I want to take over my 4 years lol. There’s a new one??? I want it!!! The one I have says 2008-2010, but the more recent the better :)</p>
<p>FHN_dent brought up one of the negatives about being in Division III sports, and that is that the apparel and assorted “gift items” with the university insignia are a lot harder to find than if Wash U were a Division I school (like Northwestern or Vanderbilt, for example) where you can find clothing, banners and such much easier. If you go to the local Walmart or sporting goods stores you can find Mizzou labeled clothes around but you can only get Wash U items at the campus bookstore or at Bear Necessities.</p>
<p>@princessbell: I visited the school earlier this week and picked up the 2008-2010 catalog. They said that that was the newest edition. If there is a newer one though I would love to see it also!</p>
<p>I’m not a student, but just did the Art College pre-frosh program last weekend. I am in looove. I should preface my comments with the fact that I go to a small, selective boarding school in Massachusetts, but live in a Chicago suburb. </p>
<p>My two cents:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>When I got back to campus and told people that I had been visiting Wash U, I was frequently asked “oh, how was DC?” or “How was Seattle?” Name recognition isn’t everything, but it is annoying that such a great school is hardly known.</p></li>
<li><p>There was construction literally five feet from my host’s window. Worst part? Her blinds were broken. Absolutely no privacy.</p></li>
<li><p>St. Louis weather leaves something to be desired. The day I arrived, it was 65, sunny and humid. The next? SNOW AND WIND. I don’t think St. Louis is quite as cold as Chicago in the winter, though. PLUS: Natural disasters keep things interesting! It gets monotonous in the East what with its lack of tornadoes, flooding, and cold temperatures warranting an “extreme weather warning.”</p></li>
</ol>
<p>In response to a couple other observed drawbacks, however, I think I have some useful comments. A couple midwesterners commented on the “East Coast old money” and elitism. As a midwesterner who also deals with this elitism on a daily basis at school, I can say that the biggest reason why I love Wash U is that the students are just as intelligent as those I know/have encountered at Ivies, but are waaaay down to earth in comparison. It’s so refreshing to have the intellectualism I’ve been surrounded by at my school with little-to-none of the pretension. Everyone I met was so, so friendly and smart, but it’s no big thing and there wasn’t that “my **** doesn’t stink” attitude. </p>
<p>Also, someone commented on the unfriendliness of admissions. My experience was the total opposite! I actually had a drastic schedule change after acceptances came out, one that would make many schools reconsider. I sought out admissions to see if I could have a face-to-face meeting with someone in order to explain, and remember one being incredibly accessible and also being called “honey” by the receptionist. The counselor was very receptive and listened to my explanation intently, obviously considering it seriously. The red tape is nonexistent here, and every student account I heard confirmed this.</p>
<p>As far as traditional dorms go, there seems to be a huge advantage (especially freshman year) of community being fostered there. In my eyes, that outweighs the perceived drawbacks, such as space and bathrooms, but I found even the least desirable facilities at WashU to be better than most schools’. </p>
<p>I can’t speak to the nature of premeds, but the environment is definitely much more supportive than at pressure-cooker east coast schools. My old public HS was cutthroat, with the environment at my current school being closer to the laid-back atmosphere of WashU. Nobody’s better than anyone else, but everyone’s pretty darn good.</p>
<p>In summary: you get all the advantages of the “East Coast” intellectual environment with very few of the problems that tend to come with it. Only drawbacks I found were the lack of name recognition and the construction on campus.</p>
<p>Oh, and I should add that the overwhelming liberalism at schools like my own and those my classmates tend to matriculate at often irks me. The Ivies are the same way. Though my thinking both socially and otherwise tends to lean heavily leftward, I miss my opinions being challenged at all. Free speech and tolerance are ironically tossed to the wayside at my overwhelmingly liberal school, with almost no political diversity. People forget why they believe in what they say they do, since it’s so easy to just go along with groupthink.</p>
<p>Wash U is certainly dominantly liberal, but the problem of single-mindedness to the point of detriment to the “marketplace of ideas” (that college ought to be in the broader sense of “liberal education,” in my opinion) is much less prevalent here than at schools of its caliber.</p>
<p>Well, just so everyone knows, the construction on the South 40 will be overwith by the time fall 2009 semester begins!</p>
<p>Hi all!
I originally started this post. I really appreciate all you had to say and definitely kept it in mind on my visit to WUSTL. Compared to LA, the midwest is a dreamland! Everyone is so friendly. I loved the school and I’m applying there Early Decision. I feel it’s my best shot at getting into my first choice school (what I call “the Snobless Ivy”).
Thanks,
Nicole</p>
<p>Actually in the brochure WashU sent us, they say that the Wohl center won’t be done till summer 2010. Is it true that half of it will be done this year since they are closing Bear’s Den? I would never eat anything except lunch if there was no food on the South 40.</p>
<p>princessbell: they are going to have a transition phase next year and in the meanwhile, they’ll still have it partly open and selling food, it just won’t be as much of a variety as this year if my sources are correct.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is so true, and I can provide a number of examples of how this then translates into a problem. </p>
<p>For instance, there is just one conservative writing for Studlife, and two (now, one just joined this week) left-libertarians too. In the three weeks with new editors in place, all three have been edited poorly. In one case, the Senior Forum Editor admitted that one of the edited articles (about Fujimori) was censored for ideological reasons. There is a rather detailed summary of the problems at Studlife written by said columnist: [Destroying</a> A Writer’s Credibility Caleb Posner’s Blog](<a href=“Private Site”>Private Site)</p>
<p>Keep in mind that writer was just invited to participate in the new eboard. Why? Because according to the SFE, “the editorial board meetings are technically open only to senior staff members, and we invite Caleb, as a columnist, to come to our meetings because we feel he helps us to strike the appropriate political balance of opinion that an editorial board for our campus community should reflect.” Now, am I the only one who sees it as a problem that they need to invite a writer in for balance because not a single eboard member is right-of-center? </p>
<p>Of course, the token conservatism doesn’t do much, since the Staff eds due out on both Wednesday and Friday are anti-conservative (Wednesday is about the College Republicans, Friday about the Conservative Leadership Association).</p>
<p>And speaking of the CLA, the treatment they received from Jill Carneghi when they brought in Robert Spencer (without SU funds, since they refuse to give them enough money to even print the Witness regularly) was terrible. She tried to force them to cancel the event at the last minute. When it failed, the university added more than $1200 in additional and unnecessary charges to try and overwhelm the group.</p>
<p>I may be beating a dead horse here, but after reading this whole thread I can’t get my mind off the poster who was upset that pre-meds had to do 6-9 hours of work a week. 6-9 a week? that’s barely over an hour a day. This is such a low estimate. I’m a history/archaeology double major, and I work far more than that. Expecting less than that at any top-rate university seems silly.
but, this is not a bad thing. Honestly, the point of college is to be able to take the classes you like, do the things you like, and learn what you came here to learn. I love my majors, and the things I’m learning genuinely fascinate me. So, if it takes me 4-5 extra hours in the zooarchaeology lab every week or two, I don’t mind! I write tons of papers, and spend a lot of time doing work, go to 19 credit hours of class, and do homework at least 3 hours a day. but, I do it sitting in my living room (off campus senior) with my friends or in our awesome library in a comfy chair, then it’s friday before I know it and I can head out to laclede’s landing or to Pat’s by Turtle Park to have a beer with friends and relax at a bar I like.</p>
<p>sorry, nerd rant. I suppose it’s just because I really love it here at WashU. Honestly, that’s what it comes down to.</p>
<p>okay let’s compile these reasons into a format like the 101 reasons to go to washu…101 reasons not to go to washu. We are around thirty something behind the other thread so lets get going.</p>
<ol>
<li>Competition</li>
<li>High costs</li>
<li>Liberal bias</li>
<li>DIII(self explanatory) so can’t really find their gear off campus and sports aren’t as great.</li>
<li>Not the greatest for engineering(except maybe BME), some actually prefer missouri s and t over WashU</li>
<li>Low name recognition</li>
<li>St. Louis isn’t a huge city like New York</li>
<li>Minorities tend to stick to themselves</li>
<li>Weather sucks sometimes</li>
<li>Food is overpriced</li>
<li>Construction is annoying</li>
<li>Some annoying requirements and clusters</li>
<li>Freshmen aren’t allowed bring their cars on campus</li>
<li>Buildings all tend to look the same with the exception of Olin and a couple other buildings</li>
<li>No building can be taller than the Graham Chapel</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li><p>I think the competition reason has been confirmed as a fallacy by students who actually go to WashU as opposed to hear-say.</p></li>
<li><p>Liberal bias is not a reason not to go to WashU if you are a liberal person, which many college students tend to be.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Has anyone found grade deflation?</p>