<p>As an old(er) guy, I find this interesting. When I applied to college, my parents persuaded me to seek to attend the “best college in the midwest” (the land from which they hailed). I went to one of a handful of the best high schools in my non-midwestern state, with tremendous resources (including six college counselors for 600 seniors and a computerized (!) college database). With the input of counselors, family friends and the computer, I determined that Carleton, Grinnell and Washington University were the “best colleges in the midwest.” I don’t recall why others, e.g., Chicago or Northwestern, weren’t on my list, but even in the mid-70s, Washington University was considered anything but a safety school, at least in the state public flagship university town where I was raised.</p>
<p>Well it certainly was for prep kids in the NYC area, a few years prior.
I think the 81% admissions rate had a lot to do with it. </p>
<p>There aren’t that many non-sectarian private universities in the midwest altogether, comparatively speaking, and as a group they may have been relatively less competitive then vs. the more selective northeast schools than they have become now. So it probably was among the best choices in the midwest, then, as now, if someone wanted to stay close, yet less desirable to a northeasterner. But even in the midwest there were more selective colleges, back then,with higher stats. Avg combined SAT (old scale): Wash U 1219, Carleton 1298, U Chicago 1308
(source : Cass & Birnbaum College guide circa 1971).</p>
<p>This of course says nothing about the education that went on there, merely class entrance profiles.</p>
<p>Hinsdale: Any ranking system depends on the variables you use and the weights you give them. As Karen11 says, “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>That’s what academics know to be true. I work alongside people who went to Harvard, Yale, Penn, Wash U, Chicago and Williams. Similarly, the top summer research programs take students from all these universities. Students at all of these schools are not only bright, they are ambitious. You’ll find them pushing themselves and each other. They work hard, write well, apply for grants, scholarships, and research experiences. Great students at great places will have great opportunities. </p>
<p>Once you are talking about schools of this quality, the difference really is fit.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This pretty much sums up the sort of people I’ve gathered who go to WashU. No one is really crazed, or defensive, or more interested in the prestige of a university than the merits of spending four years of study there. This is one of the main reasons I fell in love with the school. I come from a town that is obsessed with the Ivies. So far, we have 3 attending Cornell, 1 attending Yale, 1 attending Wharton at Penn, and there’s going to be plenty more once April 1st rolls around. It’s a crazed atmosphere, and very competitive. While I enjoy learning and school, I never really fit that type. I liked learning for the sake of learning and learning what I liked; I took the AP classes and Honors classes that interested me instead of the ones that would look better on my transcript. The laid-back atmosphere at WashU was a breath of fresh air from the environment I grew up in, and I felt immediately at home. The attitudes of those on this thread are a testament to the type of people WashU attracts. </p>
<p>It’s all about the fit. If you want that ubercompetitive, cutthroat environment, then go to Harvard or MIT or Princeton. If you want more of a party atmosphere, then go to Northwestern, or Duke, or whatever. And if you want to learn for the sake of learning in an relaxed environment, then go to WashU.</p>
<p>Does anyone know when we will be notified…yeah or nay?</p>
<p>^well that’s not off topic… You get lost son?</p>
<p>I would like to point out that no one was accepted from the wait list for the class of 2014.</p>
<p>^And what do you conclude form this information? Or anyone else care to propose possible explanations if this is indeed true?</p>
<p>Well from what I heard, they overenrolled last year; more people accepted spots than they expected to. So there were no spots for anyone on the wait list.</p>
<p>On CC, while there is a lot of speculation about their questionable admissions practices, people recognize that WUSTL is an incredibly selective, academically-strong institution. While it’s not considered in the same regard as HYPSM and perhaps the lower Ivies, Duke, and some others by all CCers, at least its prestige is recognized.</p>
<p>The same can’t be said about the average person here in the NE. Kids at my prep school have heard of it but the average person walking around town has no clue what it is, let alone how good of a school it is. My dad (who is educated) was shocked to hear that WUSTL is higher-ranked than ND (another school I got into) and he thought “for sure I was going to get in” (so he was clearly unaware of WUSTL’s selectivity).</p>
<p>WashU is without a doubt one of the nations top-tier schools: its 75th percentile SAT scores are on par with Columbia and Stanford. It routinely attracts the worlds best and brightest, not just for its top-notch academics, but also for its high quality of life. Inevitably, WashUs relatively recent rise to prominence has drawn the ire of the old boys club. In a sense, WashU faces the same kind of institutional BS that other misfits such as Duke and UChicago have put up with for years.</p>
<p>I think that students getting into Harvard Yale or Stanford but waitlisted at WashU can be in part attributed to WashU having different admission standards than those schools. Admissions officers at each institution look at applicants in a different way. While Ivys, Stanford and MIT typically look strictly at academics, I feel that WashU looks beyond the scores. I think that a person with a 2200 SAT score can easily outcompete somebody with a 2400, if they have components of their application that demonstrate significant intangibles. I think WashU realizes this, and is not simply trying to game the system. The faculty, research opportunities, quality of life, and student activity are AT LEAST just as good as they are at the lower Ivys, Duke, Northwestern, etc. I personally chose to apply ED to WashU this year and was accepted. Duke was my 2nd choice and Vanderbilt was my 3rd. WashU is a legitimate top tier school, and people who were waitlisted are just bitter and trying to rationalize their rejections.</p>
<p>One of my friends, who got into HYP(and Michigan, Duke, Amherst) a few years ago, also applied to WUSTL. He got waitlisted. Out of the 7 schools he applied to, it was his only non-acceptance. I can’t respect an admissions practice like this.</p>
<p>Wash U student here, just wanted to throw in my 2 cents.
A lot of the responders on this thread are putting way too much stock in the numbers. Doesn’t it say a lot more to judge the caliber of a school by its students than by arbitrary statistics like waitlisted number? There’s no doubt in my mind that WUSTL students are absolutely top-notch. I am continually amazed by the aptitude and accomplishments of my peers and classmates and also their sense of humility. While there are, to be sure, a few bitter ivy-rejects who came to WUSTL as “the next best option”, most students had Wash U as one of their top choices all along.
I also think there’s a lot to be said about students’ attitudes on campus. I am a BME (Biomedical Engineering major), which is notoriously difficult and cut-throat at many schools. A major factor in me coming to Wash U was the degree of camaraderie amongst the students in place of the fervent desire to be on top. We all help each other out and there is a general quest for mutual, rather than individual, success. This is very different from what you might find elsewhere, and Wash U definitely considers how prospective freshmen would fit into the supportive community on campus.
I remember looking through the WUSTL facebook at a thread called “Where did you turn down to come to Wash U?” Replies included ivies and pretty much every other respected college.
Our admissions is an absolute crapshoot, but hardly any more than any one else’s. People love to build a case against admissions based on a student or two who was waitlisted despite superb qualifications. It happens. Wash U isn’t the only place it happens.
It boils down to what has already been said: Wash U is a school on the rise. We’ve already earned the respect of academia; it just appears we now need to extend that to the public.</p>
<p>It is common knowledge among those familiar with undergraduate admissions that WashU has a history of purposely wait-listing their best applicants in order to protect their yield and acceptance rate. In fairness, every college(including Harvard) is interested in protecting their yield, and every school has some method of yield protection. WashU was just especially notorious for gaming the system, but it does seem that this practice has lessened at WashU in recent years, likely in response to constant criticism.</p>
<p>I’m intrigued at the criticism of Wash U’s seemingly random admissions practices, when it’s almost a given that admission at any top school (especially HYPS) is a crapshoot.</p>
<p>It’s because people still consider WashU a safety sometimes as compared to HYPSM et al. Which is why when very qualified people get waitlisted or rejected, people get annoyed because they have the whole “if I can get into HYPSM, why in their right minds would they turn me down?”. Of course, that attitude is wrong for the school anyways, but most people tend to call the way WashU looks for people that fit the school’s mentality, pardon the french, total BS.</p>
<p>What are WashU’s peers is one of the core question.</p>
<p>My random reply:</p>
<p>for whatever reason, in my mind, the tiers are as follows:</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>YPSM</li>
<li>Columbia, Caltech, Dartmouth, Penn, Chicago</li>
<li>Duke, Cornell, Brown, WashU, Northwestern, Hopkins, Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore</li>
</ol>
<p>The reason Cornell and Brown are in the fourth grouping, for me, has to do with the relative lack of prominence among the three high profile Professional schools of Law, Medicine, and Business. The same is true for WashU, which has an angular strength in feeding its Med School, but not particularly known for Law, Business, or any other undergraduate focus. Dartmouth can go either in the 3rd of 4th grouping.</p>
<p>
A lot of people take rejection personally; it can’t be them, so the problem has to be with the school. Personally, if I ran a school, I’d take interest into account. Shoddy essays? Out. Doesn’t make it clear that they want to come here? Out. Clearly not working hard on the app because they think we’re a safety? Out.</p>
<p>I didn’t apply to WUSTL, it just didn’t really fit what I wanted in a school. I don’t like it as much as Georgetown or Cornell or Notre Dame, but personal preference is hardly an objective measurement. There are tons of people who feel differently. And I still realize that it’s a selective school with top notch academics.</p>
<p>I don’t know how much of the talk about their admissions practices is true, but tons of schools mess with statistics; plenty on the common app count selecting a university’s name as an application, even if you don’t submit a thing. I didn’t appreciate the flood of WUSTL mail (they sent me tons of repetitive things), but I realize that every college markets. I got mail from Northwestern and tons of annoying emails from Chicago, too.</p>
<p>This idea that the most selective schools are hallowed institutions that would never besmirch their names with marketing while WUSTL is some shady character using unsavory means of sneaking into their ranks is downright ridiculous. Of the most selective universities even remotely associated with my fields of interest, the only one that didn’t market to me was Georgetown (funny, it’s my favorite). Almost all (except Georgetown, and I’ve heard MIT) use the Common App, which I don’t think is the best choice (a separate application ensures that the students really want to go to your school).</p>
<p>I’d say the marketing plans of WUSTL are on par with its peer schools (by peer schools, I refer to the most selective universities in the country). WUSTL was one of only two schools to actually send me a full application; too bad Harvard beat them by several months…</p>
<p>
Exactly. WashU, HYP all rank in the top 6-7 schools in selectivity (based on test scores, class rank, etc). At this level, no one is guaranteed admission, and decisions often hinge on random measures of “fit.”</p>