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

Applying to College
81

<p>

Spot on. This is IMHO the core of the issue.</p>

82

<p>the thing with Wash U admission is simple,
generally two things are required

  1. a decent stat
  2. a clear and strong interest in the school</p>

<p>and no.2 is weighed extremely heavily</p>

83

<p>

</p>

<p>The above applicant was rejected by WUSTL a few days ago (and many others waitlisted), without any (at least in my opinion) other possible justification, except protecting admission rates. I, personally, am not feeling as positive about the university after going through the 2015 RD decision thread and also seeing what seems to me to be admission games but also decisions often so correlated to financial aid requests (although this is only anecdotal from the couple dozen or so results I read). I realize WashU is not need blind, but perhaps it should repurpose it’s endowment to make a better attempt.</p>

84

<p>I’m fairly sure if that applicant was rejected at one of the other “Top 25” schools, comments would be made about there being a lot of highly qualified applicants and that though that applicant had high scores, there wasn’t a hook or anything and that it’s a “crapshoot” for everyone. Hell, given how many people here rant against AA, there would be the inevitable comment about upper class white males being disadvantaged or something.</p>

<p>But since someone branded WUSTL with “Tufts Syndrome,” everyone and their brother who was rejected thinks they were “overqualified.” This forum has accepted students worrying about whether they’re good enough to get in elsewhere because they weren’t “overqualified” for WUSTL.</p>

<p>Truth is, all these schools with ~20% and less admission rates are fairly unpredictable. Each has things (different things) they look for. WUSTL has made it clear that they value interest in their school.</p>

85

<p>^This applicant did demonstrate interest by visiting campus and a local info session. And as good as a school as WashU is, you will have a hard time convincing me that this applicant would not meet the thresholds for almost any school except HYPSM (which he would also likely meet, but with just with a few more identicals to compete against)</p>

86

<p>hinsdale,</p>

<p>Look through the results thread and you will see plenty of highly qualified applicants with 2300+ SATs, 4.0 grades, great ECs, who were accepted, as well as applicants who asked for financial aid. Go to any highly selective school’s results and you will see top candidates accepted and equally top candidates rejected. There are so many strong applicants that there isn’t room for all that apply to a given university. Of course this applicant meets the academic threshold for any school, but that does not mean that admission is assured. Once an applicant is above the threshold, he or she is competing with thousands of others who are above it as well.</p>

<p>Using the example you picked, this applicant applied for BME, a major which many applicants to WashU seek, and there would be little diversity if an unlimited number of such majors were accepted. Thus, perhaps if this candidate expressed an interest in philosophy or was a singer his results would have been different. If admissions were as clearcut as you claim it is, then top students wouldn’t feel the need to apply to so many schools. They would just apply to 3 or 4, since their results would be assured.</p>

<p>I think it is just shameful what is being said on these boards by some people who feel that WashU has no right to do what almost every other school does–distinguish among top candidates, choosing some and denying others. I have watched in the past few days here on CC as accepted students have been led to question their own value as applicants and feel that they have to justify their admission, because of the lack of graciousness by some posters. As BillyMc said, these comments have led the admitted to worry about being qualified to get in elsewhere, since according to the logic of some posters, if they were, they would have been denied at WashU, as being overqualified. These posters should follow the lead of the gracious waitlisted/ denied students who have shown good sportsmanship, congratulated the fortunate and moved on to their next decision, without putting down the accepted by implying that they are somehow less qualified.</p>

87

<p>

</p>

<p>Why is Harvard a tier higher?

And why is Duke in tier 4 if it’s medical, law, and business is top 10? </p>

<p>Where is Pomona? Is this an undergrad rankings? If so, why have you included prominence among law, med, and businesS?</p>

88

<p>I’m just saying, today I told one of my teachers who is also a PhD and part-time professor at a pretty prestigious state university near me and he was impressed when I told him I got into WashU. Regardless of whether their admissions practices are funky or not, it’s clearly regarded as an excellent school by those in academia.</p>

89

<p>^Congratulations rainbowrose, it is certainly an excellent school and you should be proud to have been offered admission to such a selective school. I think most here agree that academically it is incrediblly well regarded. There is some contention that if some accusations are true, that the admission stats/ practices may be doing the school a disservice (although its hard to argue considering their rise in the ranks over the years).</p>

90

<p>Thank you :). To be honest, some of these threads have made me feel horrible. I wonder every day if I was really the one who deserved to get in over the other 4-5 or so applicants who were also competing for my spot.</p>

91

<p>^You should not feel bad and you certainly deserved the spot. The adcoms have a clear vision and you fit into that vision - you shouldnt question their decision - they actually are incredibly experienced at picking students that will succeed and thrive in their campus culture. The games we are discussing, if even true, are on the very fringes and with uber-qualified applicants that most likely have their sights on even higher challenges.</p>

92

<p>At my school 6 waitlisted 2 accepted. One of the accepts everyone is really shocked that they got in compared to the others.</p>

93

<p>Plain and simple: WUSTL is a tough school to get into (based on SAT scores, class rank, etc). As others have made painfully clear, at this level of selectivity, decisions often hinge on random measures of “fit.”</p>

<p>Selectivity Ranking:</p>

<p>1 Cal Tech
2 Yale
3 Harvard
4 MIT
5 Princeton
6 Columbia
7 WUSTL
8 Harvey Mudd
9 Penn
10 Swarthmore
11 Stanford
12 Dartmouth
13 Brown
14 Pomona
15 Duke
16 Williams
17 Amherst
18 Northwestern
19 Georgetown
20 Cornell
21 Notre Dame
22 Claremont McK
23 Rice
24 Haverford
25 Chicago</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/687793-selectivity-ranking-national-us-lacs-combined-usnews-method.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/687793-selectivity-ranking-national-us-lacs-combined-usnews-method.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

94

<p>

Give it a rest, hinsdale1. Your attempt to circulate rumor and innuendo is starting to sound pathetic. Why don’t you spend a bit more time offering constructive advice to prospectives on the Northwestern forum and less time attempting to bash a rival school?</p>

95

<p>^such comments are not constructive, nor in keeping with the tone of this thread. And making personal attacks do not reflect well on you or your school (if you are indeed from WUSTL). There was no bashing of WUSTL by me (I just said that my personal opinion was reduced somewhat after examining the RD results - and this more dissappointment in their addressing the financial need aspect) and you will see mostly examples in this thread of my support for WUSTL.</p>

<p>If you do not believe there is any legitimate reason for some to question the admissions practices, you can rest assured that your opinion has been noted. I would suggest that there is no reason to be so defensive, as I am confident that the prestige of WUSTL can withstand open discussions meant to determine the merit of the accusations often made on CC.</p>

<p>Also, the selectivity listing you used is sort of a extrapolated mixed bag combined by a CC member, and relies 40% based on the number of students in the top 10% of their class (which is not a particularly solid data point in the common data sets - considering how few applicants report class rank to the elite schools). Anyway, I do not think the list is particularly informative. That is not to say WUSTL is not a very selective school. In regards to that point, I would agree with you.</p>

96

<p>hinsddale, something else to consider that stats posted in CC are often not accurate and likely not representative of the the entire application pool for WUSTL of over 28000. Do not draw conclusions from the data posted in these forums or you will be incorrect.</p>

97

<p>^ I agree. The data is clearly only anecdotal and not necessarily reliable. However, this is likely the only glimpse an outsider will get into a larger pool than 1, so it can provide some insight opposed to no data, or the very limited data that is supplied as part of the CDS.</p>

98

<p>I’m not a student at WUSTL, I simply find your arguments to be ridiculous, especially when they are based purely on mindless speculation and anecdotes. As you say:

</p>

<p>As to selectivity:

How much data do you need? Should we try schools ranked by 75th percentile SAT Scores:</p>

<ol>
<li>Yale University 1590 </li>
<li>Harvard University 1590 </li>
<li>Princeton University 1580<br></li>
<li>Pomona College 1560 </li>
<li>Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1560 </li>
<li>California Institute of Technology 1560 </li>
<li>Dartmouth College 1550</li>
<li>Washington University in St Louis 1540 </li>
<li>Duke University 1540</li>
<li>Stanford University 1540 </li>
<li>Brown University 1540 </li>
<li>Columbia University in the City of New York 1540 </li>
<li>University of Chicago 1530<br></li>
<li>Rice University 1530 </li>
<li>Swarthmore College 1520 </li>
<li>University of Pennsylvania 1520 </li>
<li>Amherst College 1520 </li>
<li>Northwestern University 1520</li>
</ol>

<p>Based on this data alone, it would be a stretch to say WUSTL is denying admission to “top” level applicants. You can give me a million personal anecdotes, but the “overqualified” theory does not hold water. </p>

<p>[College</a> Rankings - Top 500 Ranked Universities for Highest SAT 75th Percentile Scores](<a href=“Top 500 Ranked Colleges - Highest SAT 75th Percentile Scores”>Top 500 Ranked Colleges - Highest SAT 75th Percentile Scores)</p>

99

<p>Wash U. has a very strong reputation among those to pay attention to such things. It has had a strong reputation for a long time. However, its strength is not so widely known in the popular culture.</p>

100

<p>@hinsdale1, The problem is that you went through the data trying to validate your hypothesis and, it appears, ignoring things that did not support your hypothesis. That’s a statistical no-no, as is drawing conclusions from a self-reported data set. Further, we’ve seen on that thread that at least one post was fake. How many others are? No one can say. If you’re off to Northwestern, or any school of that caliber, you’ll have to do better than this. </p>

<p>I suggest reading the following (from [Statistical</a> literacy: Milo Schield](<a href=“http://innumeracy.com/articles/statlit%20schield.htm]Statistical”>http://innumeracy.com/articles/statlit%20schield.htm))</p>

<p>To be statistically literate, one must then ask" Is this statistic representative?" In some cases, a true statistic has been selected just because it supports a particular claim – not because is it representative. Thus, if someone wants to support the claim that raising highway speed limits will cause more deaths and select only those states in which this was the case (and ignore those states having the opposite experience) their statistic will be factual and true. But their sample is unrepresentative of the population, so the sample statistic may not be close to the population parameter. In other cases, the convenience sample that self-selected may be unrepresentative. Recall the Ann Landers column (23 January, 1976) that reported the results of a reader write-in survey: 70% of parents say “Kids not worth it” – if they could do it over again. The 70% is factual and true of those who chose to respond. But is it representative of all parents?</p>