Is WASH U overrated?

College Search & Selection
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<p>Princeton review's rankings are "based on feedback from more than 120,000 students across the country"</p>

<p>Wash U is ranked: </p>

<h1>12 School Runs Like Butter</h1>

<p>#9 The Toughest to Get Into<br>
#10 Best Campus Food
#7 Best Quality of Life
#13 Dorms Like Palaces</p>

<p>Now, I may be crazy, but I would LOVE to go to a school that runs like butter, has some of the best dorms AND food, where the students have a good quality of life, and where every jim johnny and harold can't get in...Do i care about USNWR ranking inflation?? NO. Because regardless of if is ranked above Cornell, below Cornell, or is equal with Northwestern, Harvard, Tufts or even a state school, there is no question that Wash U has excellent academics. Add that with the other life factors that will certainly matter at some point during college, even if they dont to you now (quality of food, quality of dorms, beauty of campus, etc.), and there is no question. Wash U is NOT overrated.</p>

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<p>Ellekay,
You have made the following comment in this thread:</p>

<p>“It annoys me to see people constantly posting incorrect stats about various colleges and universities to bolster their own postions. I encourage students who feel the same way to post the correct statistics here on cc.”</p>

<p>Would you please point specifically to the incorrect stats for the various colleges you are referring to and provide specific examples of the corrections that you feel are necessary?</p>

<p>hotasice,
Re your comment/question,</p>

<p>“Um...this is a thread about WashU. Why are you randomly inserting Johns Hopkins in here?”</p>

<p>Ellekay is the latest iteration of a Johns Hopkins booster who likes to follow me around and tries (lamely) to undermine posts including data from sources like USNWR. She complains constantly, claiming that the data is incorrect, and then when challenged, never backs her complaints up. Maybe we’ll get lucky this time and she’ll change her stripes. Let’s see if she responds to my request above and how she supports her assertions. </p>

<p>As for your comments on Wash U, you’re dead on. It’s a terrific school with terrific students that does a lot of stuff right, much of it to the benefit of its undergraduate population. We should all be so lucky. </p>

<p>Mochamaven,
I am completely with you on the issue of the accessibility of faculty. That is what really matters for undergraduates, not that Professor Smith is doing her research in some far-off laboratory and who likely has minimal contact with undergraduates. </p>

<p>As for the USNWR Faculty Resources Rank which represents 20% of the overall USNWR rank, here is what they consider for this sub-ranking:</p>

<p>Faculty Resources (six factors comprise this score)
% of classes with fewer than 20 students (30%)
% of classes with more than 50 students (10%)
Faculty Salary (35%)
% of profs with highest degree in their fields (15%)
Student-faculty ratio (5%)
% of faculty that are full-time (5%)</p>

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<p>your data was wrong...</p>

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<p>It's not overrated, people just under rate it. Washington U of St. Louis is a top-tier college that people just take for granted is a safety or match. This college should be considered match for even the best meaning Intel Finalist and etc. People complain about how it is overrated because they get rejected when they applied thinking it is an easy safety.</p>

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<p>I don't think Wash U is underrated at all, but I do think that it lacks significantly in job placement. Both my Uncle and my Cousin graduated from there giving me a solid alumni base, but both my Uncle and Cousin told me not to apply due to poor job placement. So I decided not to apply. My Cousin graduated in 2006 with a degree in communications, anyways he lives in NY but can't seem to get a job so he's trying to get into grad school @ Columbia.</p>

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<p>The problems people have with WUSTL are due to its unscrupulous admissions policies. They play cheap tricks to increase yield.</p>

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<p>hawkette. you can be as mean to me as you want and make all the false, silly statements about me as makes you happy. but your information is still wrong. that is what should really matter to you if you honestly care about students.
in case you are unaware, everytime you mention a school's name in one of your posts, it shows up under that school's posts or threads on cc. so if you are listing a bunch of school's data, each school that you mention will appear under that school's posts. i doubt anyone follows you. your posts pop up in many places.</p>

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<p>To all: Demonstrated intrest doesn't necessarily mean an expensive school visit!
Basically I emailed the admit officer several times and mailed in my research paper. that's all it takes guys to stand out from the masses!</p>

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<p>I don't think thats good of a school, certainly a notch below HYP</p>

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<p>ellekay,
Still not able to back up your claims, I see. It's funny, but the only time these charges ever are made, it involves you and Johns Hopkins. Your ongoing campaign to undermine objective sources like USNWR are, at best, misinformed and ultimately serve no one’s interests and, as a representative of the school, reflect badly on Hopkins. </p>

<p>Ironically, the lack of data and perhaps accuracy on the college website is one of the frequent complaints we hear about Wash U and now you are telling folks not to trust the information provided by sources like USNWR, IPEDs (federal database) and collegeboard. LOL. If you want to provide a public service, then please point to the specific data errors that you believe have been posted. As the saying goes, put up or....</p>

<p>Milkmagn,
Those of us writing in support of Wash U would probably agree with your statement that Wash U is not a peer of HYP (at least I would). However, in that next group of top colleges, I would certainly place Wash U as a legitimate peer and I’d probably place them near the top of that group of colleges.</p>

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<p>Top colleges in general are overrated. But WashU is underrated among top colleges.</p>

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<p>jbhgy:"My Cousin graduated in 2006 with a degree in communications, anyways he lives in NY but can't seem to get a job so he's trying to get into grad school @ Columbia."</p>

<p>That's why my d has decided not to be placed on the waitlist; very concerned about job opportunities out of Wash U (and she was admitted to Newhouse on the same day.....95% job placement rate at graduation....)</p>

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<p>WashU simply does not attract elite recruiters. If you want to work at McKinsey or a hedge fund WashU is incredibly behind places it ranks close to such as Dartmouth and Columbia.</p>

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<p>Hawkette. Ma'am. you are really very out of order. Truly. Name calling is not very nice and making accusations and assumptions is just plain nasty. When there is an error that I can correct, I think that I should. I can see what the problem is with your data. You seem to get an idea lodged in your mind and then run with it even if you are incorrect. I represent no school. But I do not approve of setting out tons of data which have not been adequately checked out. One more time. The data you present does not match up with the data supplied by the colleges in too many instances. Trying to help by pointing this out should only make you happy and not angry.</p>

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<p>I wouldn't even put Washington U up with any of the Ivies. Their job placement is nowhere near those at the Ivies for one. From what people have said about their use of tricks to increase yield, it just worsens the image of course.</p>

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<p>I've honestly never heard of WSUTL until CC. Not sure I believe WSUTL ranks higher than Stanford.</p>

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<p>Overall: I think its rating is a bit too high (overrated), but the school's reputation on CC is underrated.</p>

<p>Good:
-Awesome dorms; so awesome; good campus
-Work hard/party harder
-My school is in Arkansas so a lot of students apply and go to WashU; from what I have heard and observed, it is a great school. Students are happy.</p>

<p>Bad:
-General admission policy
*Rejection of obvious HYPSM material.
*Wait listing of a boatload of people in order to lower acceptance rate.
*Plays the number game with ACT (only top 15 school to superscore the ACT).
-Reputation not on par with rank (in most fields, of course there are exceptions)
-Placement not on par with rank
-Location not on East/West coast (for East/West coast students)</p>

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<p>I also never heard of wash u until sophomore year of high school. I can say that none of my friends had heard of it either. I think that this is one reason why so many people are confused about its high ranking and are willing to accept the rumor (fact?) about how wash u has manipulated its numbers in order to get a high rating. It is further confusing when looking at the PA. Wash U somehow looks odd in its high postion among and even above all of those 4.5-4.9 schools. It's like they created this marketing hype which has worked out well for them.</p>

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<p>I want to add though that no one in my high school of top college academic quality considers wash u a safety like they often do for some other great schools like vanderbilt and rice.</p>

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<p>ellekay, i had also never heard of Swarthmore. I heard of both of them in my Junior year. Even as of right now, very few of my friends and family are familiar with either one of them.
Will you argue that Swarthmore manipulated it's rankings, because it is not well known "average people"'s circles?</p>