<p>I think that WashU should be in the Top 10, and the only reason it is not is due to it's Peer Review rating (4.1/5.0). It's low peer review is probably because of the unnecessary criticism generated by those who were rejected/waitlisted.
In fact, WashU is in the Top 10 in all the categories that DO matter:
1) Selectivity
2) Financial Resources
3) Faculty Resources
4) Quality of Life (PR)</p>
<p>It is probably the only school in the entire nation to be in the Top 10 in all 4 of the above listed categories. The overrall US News ranking is hardly important because only the "components" of the ranking that matter to a particular individual should matter, and most of the people would probably agree that these 4 components matter more than useless components such as popularity/peer review, alumni giving, financial aid.</p>
<p>Do you happen to know how good their engineering program is? I’m really wanting to go out of state for engineering, and since I can’t take the Physics Subject Test schools like Columbia, Carnegie Mellon ect. are out of the question.</p>
<p>Well, I’ve gotta say that I think that WashU is an absolutely wonderful school; there are few national universities that I find as or more appealing.
But I think the OP goes a bit too far in suggesting that “selectivity” - which is subject to gross manipulation (of the sort which WashU is masterful at practicing) - is as important as peer review, in which high ranking academics from other institutions assess the academic quality of a given school.
WashU is great, but it’s not quite Top 10.</p>
<p>^Columbia SEAS does not require the physics subject test. From the Columbia website:</p>
<p>“In addition to either the SAT or ACT, you must also take two SAT Subject Tests. For Columbia College, you may take any two; for Columbia Engineering, you must take any mathematics test and either Physics or Chemistry. Students must submit all SAT Subject Test scores from all test dates.”</p>
<p>^ Back up your claim, or your post isn’t worth anything.</p>
<p>Hoyasaxa1’s only other post on the WashU board has been to slam the school for it’s ‘horrible admissions practices’ of waitlisting a lot of kids.
Before this poster uses that as his/her reasoning for the above knock on WashU, note these two things:
Yield does NOT get factored into the US News rankings.
You cannot claim that the waitlist helps selectivity when they haven’t even used the waitlist twice in the past four years.</p>
<p>Translation: hoyasaxa has already shown that he/she just wants to slam the school, so take any posts with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>This being said, I have no real opinion on the topic of “underrated” vs. “overrated.” I absolutely love WashU and I am so glad that I chose it over other (higher ranked) universities I was accepted at.</p>
<p>hoyasaxa has a reputation of slamming more than just WashU.</p>
<p>Their reputation is certainly more than well-deserved and I think the quality of the school is far better than what the general public gives it credit for.</p>
<p>We are currently ranked 13th by USNWR, equal to Hopkins, right by Northwestern, Brown and Cornell. Give or take 2 places, that is right where we belong.</p>
<p>If that’s not good enough for you, don’t apply. We won’t be missing out =]</p>
<p>WashU is far from underated. My child visited a number of the premier universities in the northeast and, in my opinion, they were not as impressive as Washu. I strongly urge you to walk the campus and speak with staff. I think you will be smitten.</p>
<p>You need to get your facts straight about Wash. U’s undergraduate admissions practices–they are known to inflate their application numbers (counting incomplete applications as completed), encourage applicants by sending out requests to apply as well as waiving application fees and essay requirements, provide ACCEPTED student statistics for ENROLLED students, and waitilist students to protect their yield as well as to lower their acceptance rate (by selectively admitting students who express strong intention to enroll if accepted off the waitlist). Wash. U’s rise to national prominence has come almost exclusively from their less-than-honest admissions practices and the prestige and quality of their medical school. It is the only school in the top 25 who went from admitting upwards of 75% of their applicants to less than 25% in a period of twenty years. They should be commended on “how to rig the system in your favor to climb rankings.” They have been far more successful than Tufts and Tulane with these ploys (the two other major offenders of admissions manipulations). The sad truth is that other second-choice (and third choice) schools are beginning to follow suit given the “success” of Wash. U. The reality is that Wash. U continues to be most people’s second or third choice, and that will not change–even though Wash. U. may gain academic prestige, it will never have the social prestige of its “peers.”</p>
<p>hoyasaxa1 -
In what ways do you believe that Tufts manipulates the numbers like Wash U? I have never been under that impression. By way of example, Wash U has never required supplemental essays, because its admissions office knows that this extra burden discourages people who are only marginally interested (or lazy) from applying, and they want to keep the size of the applicant pool as large as possible, so that the admit rate will be smaller. Tufts, on the other hand, has a relatively onerous supplement that is required, which has the contrary effect of reducing the potential size of the applicant pool; if Tufts dropped the supplement, its applicant pool would increase by thousands, and its admit rate would drop.</p>
<p>Hoyasaxa has failed to prove anything that he/she has posted. I HIGHLY doubt that hoyasaxa has ever had a look into the actual WashU admissions office and into how they conduct business.</p>
<p>Let it also be noted: what is wrong in picking students off the waitlist (or general admissions w/ considering interest) who actually want to go to WashU? It makes for a happier student body, something that is always well-praised at WashU.</p>
<p>Second: there are clearly many students who have WashU as their #1 choice.</p>
<p>Hoyasaxa’s just hatin cause he/she loves to hate on schools (just look has his/her post record. It’s absurd).</p>
<p>I am very familiar with Wash. U’s undergraduate admissions, as is most of the admissions world, academia, and graduate school admissions offices. There are some students who choose Wash. U. as their first choice (they are called early decision students, which is why it is easier to get in early–they are forced to attend the school if they are offerred admission, so they better not want to go anywhere else!). Wash. U. loses more students to the other top 25 schools than it wins (in fact, Wash. U’s record of winning students is only behind Carnegie Mellon)–it is, and has been for a long time, the (best) back-up school in the country.</p>
<p>WCASParent–Tufts has a history of waitlisting top candidates to determine their level of interest (ie, if they choose to remain on the waitlist) due to the fact that it was a perennial backup for ivy league and other institutions and it was affecting their acceptance rate and yield. This came to be known as “Tufts Syndrome” in admissions circle and is even described in Wikipedia.</p>
I wish I would have known that last year when I was actually taking AP Physics.</p>