<p>All of this talk is absolutely ridiculous.
WashU is a great school and rankings should not matter in where people decide to enroll.
I am an admitted student, and I don't understand what is wrong with a school taking kids they actually think are going to enroll. Most schools try to find matches for the atmosphere and personality of their school, and WashU seems to get a lot of crap for doing that well. They also use their waitlist excessively because last year (and in previous years) they over-enrolled the freshman class by about 200. Logically, they would palce mroe on the waitlist and take mroe off to get their enrollment numbers correct.</p>
<p>I know of 5 kids from my school who applied. 3 accepted, and 2 waitilisted. One of the waitlisted is an extremely intelligent student but used WashU as his backup, so maybe that showed. The other waitlisted reached for WashU and, I guess, didn't make it.</p>
<p>Personally, I would be exstatic if enrolled at WashU, which will depend on fin. aid, but people on these boards need to get off their high horses. Statistics aren't everything. College should be about finding the right school for you, not the school with the greatest bumper sticker recognition</p>
<p>"Cheap tricks," citygirl? Sounds bitter. How did WUSTL make #4 med school? Cheap tricks too? Take a look at the faculty -- you might be surprised.</p>
<p>WashU's med school has been around as an elite school for years and has a very solid reputation of placing its grads into the best situation possible after graduation. Wash U undergrad isn;t there yet.</p>
<p>People love to bash WashU for it's high USNWR ranking. They seem to have alot of trouble letting a newcomer make it into the upper echelons of education. Of course WashU cares about their ranking, so do most schools. But the fact is that the only thing any school can "manipulate" is the acceptance rate. However, the acceptance rate only accouts for 1.5% of the USNWR rating ( 10% of the 15% Student Selectivity rating). 90% of the student selectivity rating is based on the caliber of the student body--SAT/ACT scores and top 10% of class. WashU constantly gets bashed for rejecting or waitlisting students who they believe will not choose WashU if accepted in order to protect its yield, and for marketing itself in order to bring in more applications and decrease its acceptance rates. However, even if you believe that to be true, its impact of 1.5% on the USNWR ranking is minimal. WashU's ranking has been hard earned by investing in the areas which make for a great education and environment--great faculty, top students, low student to faculty ratio, investment in the physical campus, committment to undergraduates...etc.</p>
<p>Anyone who really understands how the USNWR rankings are calculated knows that WashU ,or any school ,can't "manipulate" their way into the top tiers, they need to earn it.</p>
<p>USNWR rankings don't mean much. schools such as georgetown are just as good, if not better, but are ranked lower because they have one of the smallest endowments. uc berkeley should be ranked higher as well, but is not because it is hard for most students to graduate in 4 years. therefore, the rankings aren't very accurate.</p>
<p>wpolo8, I don't think we want to start a whole discussion regarding the value or validity of USNWR rankings here. USNWR is takes one view on what makes a great school. You may agree or disagree with their criteria. The point I was trying to make here is that for those who criticize WashU for "manipulating" their USNWR ranking, they should understand that acceptance and yield numbers have a very small impact on the USNWR ranking.</p>
@citymom
I think WUSTL is overratted in terms that it got its position on USNWR list by playing cheap tricks. First they get a lot of kids to apply by not having a supplement (just Common App - like a third-tier school), and by moving their application deadline to Jan 15. An artificial boost to the "selectivity" score. Then they waitlist everyone who is not likely to matriculate (and those who want to attend have to prove it in order to be accepted from waitlist). Another artificially boosted score.
Without these tricks they will have a considerably lower rank. But with this said, it is still a very strong school. Just not a top 10. Closer to 20-25.
[/quote]
How many letter did they send to your kid? I lost the count. lol</p>
<p>btw, any one have the link to the USNWR's peers ranking? It is different than the one they published on paper.</p>
<p>Again, you guys just don't understand how the USNWR ratings are calculated. There is no separate yield impact. Waitlisting to protect yield and actively seeking more applications together can only impact 1.5% of the total score. Get the facts before you make comments based on misinformed rhetoric.</p>
<p>They just don't have the academic depth and quality of most other schools at that ranking level. The engineering school is crap. Many of their liberal arts depts are just OK. It has nothing much in the arts. The busienss school is not great. It made most of its rep with the medical school and related bio areas.</p>
<p>Well, they just canned the head of the E school. Look at the B school rankings. Look at the US News departmental rankings. Look at the top American Research Universities report. See how low they rank on NAS members outside Medicine.</p>
<p>All parts of USNEWS can be manipulated. Take "student/ faculty" ratio. Unlike places like Dartmouth and Princeton where a majority of the faculty teach 3-4 undergrad courses, WashU counts med school faculty who might not even teach ONE class. If you look at faculty resources, the same manipulation can happen. Its not so cut and dry.</p>
<p>What I get from reading through it is that WUSTL is not at all overrated, and is in fact highly ranked by an evaluation system that leans on objective measurements rather than subjective opinion pulled out of someone's...er, ear. </p>
<p>Note the opening sentence on page 7. The Center for the Measurement of University Performance determines the top American research universities by their ranking in NINE different measures. Not looking at one measure to cherry pick a perceived weakness (too many NAS member are medical/bio science related) and ignoring all other measures. </p>
<p>Note the comment that some research universities "rank highly both nationally and among their public and private peers and therefore appear in more than one table." Can't link to the pages, but anyone interested in a fair evaluation of where WUSTL fits among its peers can go to page 10 and page 12 of the linked report. Among private research universities, WUSTL is in the top 10. No. 8. Among private and public research universities, it is no. 15. </p>
<p>These rankings are based on NINE measurements chosen to determine overall academic excellence. You can look them up. There is no evidence, quite the opposite, that WUSTL offers "weak academics" outside of medicine.</p>
<p>"They just don't have the academic depth and quality of most other schools at that ranking level. The engineering school is crap. Many of their liberal arts depts are just OK. It has nothing much in the arts."</p>
<p>Their fine arts program is well regarded. They absolutely do have the same academic depth and quality as the other schools in that general ranking. Like any other school in the top 30 or so, Wash U is a can't-go-wrong school.</p>
<p>How many Top 10 or Top 20 depts do they have? I'll give you a hint--Econ-no, English no, history no, poli sci barely top 20, psych no, socio, no, math, no, physics no, geology, no, comp sci no, chemistry no, bio, top 20--woo hoo.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Note the opening sentence on page 7. The Center for the Measurement of University Performance determines the top American research universities by their ranking in NINE different measures. Not looking at one measure to cherry pick a perceived weakness (too many NAS member are medical/bio science related) and ignoring all other measures.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, to be fair, significant portion of the 9 measures are heavily skewed by the medical field. Speicificly, schools with top med schools are gonna score a lot of points off 1. total research, 2. federal research, 3. national academy members, and 4. faculty awards and gonna be well-ranked. Refer to 166-172 to see the difference medical research makes to the federal research rank.</p>
<p>That said, I don't think it should be used to rank undergrad anyway. I am not gonna believe schools like Harvard/Yale are below Ohio State (federal rank without med research).</p>
<p>Barely top 20. Wow. In the whole country? That's terrible. Just terrible. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I don't have a gourman's or a rugg's on hand to counter what you say, or to put it in any kind of context by comparing it to the other universities in the top 20. </p>
<p>I do have a 2008 USNWR Best Colleges edition though. It's skimpy on describing programs, but there's some interesting data on pages 114 and 115 of the magazine. For UG business, WUSTL is kind of right there, oh, tied with UWisconsin at #12. Tied with Cornell too. Same PA score, 3.9, for all three. Must be so embarrassing for the UG business program at UW. </p>
<p>True, the engineering program is undergoing some flux right now. But "crap" is a bit strong. At #43 in the nation (USNWR ranking of best engineering schools whose highest degree is a doctorate, page 114) it is tied with the program at BROWN with the same PA score of 3.2 --- and, whoa, is five points AHEAD of #48 Dartmouth, PA 3.1. Gee, does that make Brown or Dartmouth College overrated in general? Hmmmm. </p>
<p>I wish I had time to gather more info on the other programs because I don't trust what others post anymore. I think WUSTL has many more highly respected programs than ever get acknowledged on CC. Besides which, does being No. 15 or No. 25 mean a program isn't strong and isn't providing an excellent education? That could be a whole separate debate (which I also don't have time for right now.) </p>
<p>Let's recap. WUSTL is the No. 15 out of 200 top research universities in America (No. 8 among private universities) according to an unbiased source using NINE measures of academic quality. In a national ranking of UG national universities (USNWR), it is tied for 12th place by a combination of subjective (PA) and objective measures. </p>