Is Wash U St. Louis really a top tier school?

Applying to College
41

<p>I think we are greatly overcomplicating Wash U’s “lack of prestige,” or at least the lack of prestige it suffers from among students (but not necessarily academia or employers). Wash U is a newcomer, it’s that simple. Like someone said before, the acceptance rates among top schools just a couple of decades ago was massive. Back in the 60s and 70s (or thereabouts) UChicago was considered a bad school, suffered a lot of financial problems and had an acceptance rate in the 80 percent range. Now it’s one of the best schools in the country. Every school’s was higher and has decreased. </p>

<p>Wash U, I think is similar to Northwestern and UChicago in that sense, just about 20 years late to the game. I think that they have certainly solidified themselves in the top 10/top 15 rank nationally, and they are now seriously attracting the nation’s top students by maintaining a classy, all business image and hiring a ton of extremely accomplished professors (hence their exceptionally small class sizes and very high tuition, which also funds expansion). Academically Wash U is absolutely capable of running with the Ivies and their students prove it (for example, Wash U’s Olin b-school has the highest average incoming SAT scores of any undergraduate business school).</p>

42

<p>i second what MN9001 says. It is simply a question of WashU being a newcomer to the most selective schools, much like Chicago before it. WashU has a large endowment, which enables it to hire top notch faculty and expand its programs, important things for strengthening a university. </p>

<p>As someone who is presently working in academia, I can tell you that WashU is highly respected among faculty at other schools as providing a very high quality education. And if you look at student selectivity rankings, which measures SAT/ACT scores + high school GPA, WashU is #6 in the country, which is evidence that top students are applying and choosing to attend.</p>

<p>I think we will see over the next decade that a number of schools, such as USC, for example, will continue to increase in reputation from where they were in the past.</p>

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<p>As a WashU class of 2015er, this might be a bit biased, but here’s my bit.</p>

<p>I live in New Jersey, so I’m firmly cemented in the East Coast. People definitely have heard of it (maybe more so recently due to how often I wear my sweatshirt and have to explain), but it’s not like it’s “OMG WASHU”. It’s not “what the heck is that” either. I agree with the previous posters who have said that WashU’s problem is that it’s a newcomer. People who always be wary of newcomers, and what got them there, it’s that simple. Sure, their numbers are most likely manipulated, however you can’t blame them alone for that. There has to be more than one school whose reported numbers are changed, it’s the way most things are done nowadays. Everything can be made to look the right way if you present the numbers the right way. I’m in AP Stat now, believe me, we’re learning about this. </p>

<p>But that doesn’t mean WashU is not a good school. When I got in, my uncle, who is a professor at Harvard, was actually really impressed and has a lot of friends there due to WashU’s genomics department and his connections to it. The people I’ve met who either went there or attend now are phenomenal, they are all genuinely smart and eager to learn. Another problem: the environment as WashU is very unique to a top-tier school. It very much has a mid-west chill vibe, and despite its strength in academics it’s very noncompetitive and relaxed. So it also draws a very different sort of people than those who would go to a school like MIT or UChicago. </p>

<p>Honestly, I understand the arguments against it. But in five or ten years, WashU will be old news and like the previous poster mentioned, a newer school like USC will be up for debate. It’s a cycle.</p>

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<p>“Back in the 60s and 70s (or thereabouts) UChicago was considered a bad school, suffered a lot of financial problems and had an acceptance rate in the 80 percent range.”</p>

<p>“It is simply a question of WashU being a newcomer to the most selective schools, much like Chicago before it.”</p>

<p>I don’t know what you guys are talking about, when I was looking at this, both for myself years ago and with my kids starting about 2004, Chicago was on each observation a highly selective school. it was one of those self-selective places, with a relatively high admissions rate but humongous SATs to match. Nobody when I was applying regarded Chicago as an easy admit, despite the nominal acceptance rate, and it was known as a damn tough and well regarded school. Extremely well regarded.</p>

<p>On a spreadsheet I made using data from the guiide books from when I was applying in the very early 70s, Chicago ranks #20 in highest average SATs, Wash U was #64.</p>

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<p>Another academic checking in here to second what @thentheresme’s uncle said. WashU is considered a terrific school among university faculty, and their students do well in grad school admissions. That’s something I checked into when my child decided to apply, by talking to acquaintances not only at my own uni, but at the HYPS school that is in my community. My child is now a very happy student at WashU, and enjoys the Midwestern vibe that @thentheresme referred to.</p>

<p>@monydad,
My take on Chicago is that in the 60s and 70s Chicago was not as widely known and did not get the respect by the “general public” that it now has. That, in addition to self-selection, contributed to the relatively high acceptance rate it used to have. Admissions Dean Nondorf’s marketing efforts plus the move to the common application has accelerated the trend towards low acceptance numbers which started before him. I know that some students protested the demise of the “uncommon application,” but that’s the way it goes. Columbia went to the common application this year and its applicant numbers exploded.</p>

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<p>Chicago has been a great school, like, forever. It was plenty widely known in the 60s and 70s, and before. It was famous as one of the major sites where scientists worked on development of the atomic bomb. And for the Chicago school of economics, under Milton Friedman. Among other things. Its renown in these fields was well established before, yet not forgotten by, the 60s. Applicant numbers exploding due to joining common app is one thing , that’s a far cry from “was considered a bad school”, as was posted. As far as I’ve been paying attention, and before that too, it has been considered a great school. Though not a school for everyone.</p>

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<p>Desperatu, when you’re trying to cover your full range of possible schools to deal with the uncertainty of the admissions process, it can require 8-12 college applications. My son had limited time over winter break, having taken 10 classes first semester, 7 of them college or AP classes; he also had 3 major papers assigned during the break. In the end, he prioritized several college choices based on how much time the extra essays would take – and ultimately didn’t get to two or three of his middle choices.</p>

<p>An awful lot of the essay prompts on the individual supplements are just ridiculous and appear to be written by drunken ad coms at the party AFTER each year’s acceptance process ends, with the main purpose being to see what extra hoops the applicant will jump through. Sure, “Why our college?” is a sensible question, but how many random purposeless questions like “You are looking through a window, what do you see?” or “Solve for X” or essays based on randomly-supplied quotations can one intelligently write about before one is ready to run out of the house screaming? </p>

<p>So if Washington U is streamlining the application process and maybe picking off a couple dozen students who really wanted to go to HYPSM as a first choice, more power to them.</p>

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<p>Those were my favorite types of essay prompts.</p>

<p>Just my 2 cents</p>

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<p>My son (36 ACT) applied to Wash U for two reasons. 1) They encourage and help make possible double majors in completely opposite areas for example math and a fine art or business and chemistry 2) WashU offers a smidgen of hope for a healthy merit scholarship.</p>

50

<p>^a previous responder in this thread has indicated that only 16 people receive > $2000? Barely a smidgen if true.</p>

<p>Just noting that the Wash U contingent that have responded in this thread do seem somewhat better adjusted then the responders one might expect to a thread like this. Perhaps Wash U attracts highly qualified, but less superficial applicants (people interested primarily in the merits and not the ‘name’)? For example I would be wary of the reaction from Brownies were this thread to propose a discussion of Brown’s legitimacy as top tier (not a completely unreasonable topic). Anyway, has left a positive impression.</p>

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<p>hinsdale: They would flame you for calling a Brunonian a Brownie.</p>

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<p>^I will call them whatever they want… as long as they keep bringing me my cookies.</p>

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<p>I’m a parent of a WashU student, from NJ. I tend to agree with the posters upthread who say that WashU doesn’t have as much name recognition and prestige because of its relatively recent rise. Some years ago WashU made a major fundraising pitch with its alumni, significantly increased its endowment, and was able to make investments in faculty and merit scholarships, leading to an increase in many of the factors that USNWR measures. </p>

<p>My son has benefited from those factors as a WashU student, from the great facilities, well-funded extra-curricular activities, and accessible professors, particularly his favorite freshman year class, a FOCUS, which is a year-long freshman seminar class for 15 students, taught by an exceptional, very experienced professor. I’ve also been very impressed by their pre-law advising. </p>

<p>I find a real distinction in name recognition of WashU in NJ, when I mention that my son is a student there. The average man-on-the-street has never heard of it. But those who know colleges, who fall into two main categories, are very impressed by WashU. The two categories are those in academia, and other parents who have had children applying to top colleges. I have a reasonable amount of interaction with college professors through my work, and they are the ones who are most aware of WashU and its strengths. And for those who fit into both categories, professors with high school/college age kids, recognition of the school is exceptionally high.</p>

<p>Geography is probably also a big factor. My S had a number of high school classmates questioning why he wanted to go to St. Louis. I think a lot of that is due to an East Coast mentality, thinking other regions of the country are inferior.</p>

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<p>Another academic here: Colleagues tell me that Wash U has top departments in political science, English, German, economics, social work, chemistry and, of course, biology. (That doesn’t mean the other departments are not highly regarded, it just means my colleagues have not mentioned them to me.) Further, when discussing questions about the curriculum, my LAC often looks to Wash U’s first year student program as an example of what a place with strong funding can do. Wash U is a fine school and certainly a peer of places like Cornell and Northwestern. </p>

<p>New leaders change schools and Wash U rise is quite similar to that of Penn. Yet folks on CC rarely question Penn’s rise. The following article says “Penn’s improvements through the 1980s was largely due to its shrewd recruitment and marketing efforts.”
[The</a> Early-Decision Racket - Magazine - The Atlantic](<a href=“http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/09/the-early-decision-racket/2280/]The”>The Early-Decision Racket - The Atlantic)</p>

<p>I have been at institutions that have tried every trick in the book to raise their rankings, only to see them fall. It’s more complicated than you think.</p>

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<p>You describe Wash U as a “fine” school and don’t mention as “certainly a peer” of the other schools that my premise grouped together as Tier 1 schools (just below HYPSM); such as Duke, Dartmouth, U Chicago, UPenn (Columbia, Penn, and Brown might be considered the highest Tier 1 schools)</p>

<p>I am not sure if your feeling/point here is that Cornell and Northwestern are somehow slightly lower along with Wash U? Or were you just abbreviating the list of Tier 1 schools to a few names for brevity?</p>

<p>If it is the latter, meaning Wash U is legitimately in the company of Top Tier 1 schools Duke, Penn, U Chicago, Dartmouth (in whose company I would place both Northwestern and Cornell) should Wash U not then be considered “world class” or “one of the finest schools in the US” and significantly better than “fine”?</p>

<p>I don’t want to digress into an exact order ranking of personal opinions of the Tier 1 schools, but your comments bring this thread back full circle to my initial premise: Why is it that so many hedge their bets when discussing the legitimacy of Wash U as a Tier 1.</p>

<p>So the original question remains: Is Wash U at the pinnacle of educational opportunity in this country – a world class institution legitimately deserving of inclusion in the TOP ten or twelve schools in the country – a tier above Georgetown, JHU, Rice ,Tufts, UC Berkeley, Notre Dame?</p>

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<p>“The average man-on-the-street has never heard of it. But those who know colleges, who fall into two main categories, are very impressed by WashU. The two categories are those in academia, and other parents who have had children applying to top colleges.”</p>

<p>There should be a third category, oldsters of my era and forward, up to the point where things changed, who went through the selective college process themselves, back in the day, but did not themselves have kids who applied to selective private colleges, or, even if they did, did not investigate the current situation. That segment would have had impressions of the school formed long ago, but may not have had opportunity to revise these impressions based on new information provided via their kids. I would expect that this group would certainly have heard of it, and would not be particularly impressed.</p>

<p>Basically every one in my cohort, in my era, heard of it, it was the archetypical safety school, back then.</p>

<p>Back when my D1 was applying to colleges, I started throwing in my 2 cents about the various schools, and she told me everything I knew was 30-40 years old and completely useless, and wrong, now. Rather than being ignored, and because I wanted to prove she was wrong, I went back and compared relative entrance statistics of schools from the time when I was applying vs. the situation currently. That deliberate effort, undertaken only because of her overt challenge, is the only way I really updated my own point of reference. I am confident that many people would not bother to make the effort to update their frame of reference as I did. Therefore many people, though indeed they have heard of it, still probably have an impression of Wash U shaped by the era when they themselves applied to colleges, without updating.</p>

<p>Most people do not keep up with college selectivity levels, other than their own perhaps, once they have chosen colleges for themselves, unless they’ve a reason to do so. Yet all these people do not automatically forget whatever they surmised during their own search.</p>

<p>Of course it may be more difficult to identify members of this group. If you say “my son goes to Wash U” they are not likely to respond “oh, I’m sorry to hear that, he must have really struck out”, even if they are thinking that to themselves. But that doesn’t mean this group doesn’t exist, and by reasoning above it should exist. Sort of like the old “silent majority”. (not saying this group is a majority though).</p>

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<p>"…Wash U rise is quite similar to that of Penn. Yet folks on CC rarely question Penn’s rise. "</p>

<p>Penn’s rise was aided, quite substantially, by a few other factors. Wall Street was way out of favor in the vietnam era, but became way fashionable again starting in the Milken-infused 80s. Penn’s fortunes are highly influenced by Wharton. Also some major cities rose from disrepair ,disrepute and near-bankruptcy in the 70s to become downright highly desirable in the 80s. This also affected Penn. Not only Penn, but NYU and Columbia were also highly affected by these exogenous factors. Which did not apply to Wash U.</p>

<p>Some of the schools that improved their relative selectivity more than Penn did, from when I was applying till when D1 was applying, were, in order:</p>

<pre><code>Wash U
NYU
USC
Cal Berkeley
Washington & Lee
Notre Dame
Claremont
Emory
Georgetown
UCLA
Boston College
Duke
Carnegie Mellon
Northwestern
</code></pre>

<p>So while Penn’s rise was quite noteworthy, it was not an outlier to the extent that Wash U was. No college was, actually. Wash U was #1.</p>

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<p>Hinsdale: I prefer not to rank schools. I think all of these schools are excellent and a student can have a great experience at any of them. </p>

<p>Is Wash U world class? I can say that in my own field, it is one of the best in the world. I have been told that the same is true in other fields.</p>

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<p>Exactly. As a Columbia parent (in addition to being a WashU parent), I have seen much less tolerance of questioning about Columbia on the Columbia threads. There was even one where posters felt insulted because some non-Columbians were grouping Columbia with Penn rather than with HYP. </p>

<p>Here on CC we are always talking about “fit” as being an important element. My daughter turned down some other terrific schools whose reputations are more widely known, including Dartmouth and Cornell, for WashU because she fell in love with WashU. She sat in on some classes in her major, stayed overnight in the dorms, and said everyone was so friendly and welcoming and seemed happy to be there. And when I went to parent’s weekend, I sat in on 2 classes in my field, and I was impressed with both the professors and the quality of the student discussion. </p>

<p>And as someone who works in academia, I can tell you that in terms of academic quality there is very little difference between all the schools listed by the OP. The education at Georgetown or Rice is just as strong as the education at Duke or Penn. What is different is fit. </p>

<p>And I can assure the WashU students who are reading this that when it comes time for grad school, the other places you apply will most certainly know that you are coming from a world class university.</p>

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<p>^When evaluating a ~$55,000/yr purchase (students often share this burden) this may be a luxury reserved only for academics.</p>

<p>For the 10’s of thousands of highly motivated and highly achieved high school students that may not yet have any clear academic or professional calling, it may not be as easy to be so inclusive. The value of the undergrad degree, in terms of post-graduation earnings power, grad school admissions, level of critical thinking or competence attained overall and/or in your chosen field needs to be evaluated and thus ranked in order to make an informed decision. </p>

<p>So, although it may not be a collegial exercise, attempting to more accurately determine quality or ranking of colleges may serve a practical and valid purpose. And is really the point of this thread.</p>

<p>Is ~$55,000/yr equally well spent at Duke, Northwestern, Cornell, U Chicago, Dartmouth and WUSTL?</p>