My Consolation for Waitlisted Applicants

Colleges and Universities A-Z Washington University in St. Louis
1

<p>My son was Waitlisted
(applied for FA on WUSTL counselor's advice but knew he wouldn't get anything anyway)</p>

<p>Non-minority on any POV
3.98 GPA UW
Top 10% of elite private school class
33 ACT
10 APs (World History 4, USHistory 3, Government (senior), Macroeco. (senior), Chem 5, Bio (senior), CalcAB 5, CalcBC (senior), Latin Lit 3, EnglishLit (senior))
AP scholar (distinction)
750+ community service hrs
Eagle Scout
Leader of serveral different successful clubs @ school
research experience
teachers said that recs were some of the best they'd ever written for a student in 30+ yrs.</p>

<p>Their loss I suppose :). And to all of you bummed-out WL-ed seniors...For what it's worth, please read this capitalized letter...it'll make you feel better, I hope:</p>

<p>WASHU HAS SUFFERED A GREAT LOSS BY WAITLISTING YOU! DON'T FEEL UPSET! YOU ARE A GREAT STUDENT (as made evident by your grades/SAT/ACT/ECs, etc), AND ANY OTHER GREAT COLLEGE WOULD BE DELIGHTED TO HAVE YOU IN A HEARTBEAT! </p>

<p>TO HAVE ACCEPTED <6% OF ITS APPLICANTS IS A TERRIBLE MARK ON THE SCHOOL ITSELF, NOT UPON YOU, THE APPLICANT. TO ME, IT'S A COMPETITION WITH THE IVIES (Harvard, for example, is accepting 7% this year), COUPLED WITH THE LOSS OF FUNDING BECAUSE OF THIS ECONOMIC DISASTER. WHOEVER STARTED THE HYPOTHESIS OF THE TREND OF FA-APPLICANTS AND WAITLISTING IS PROBABLY RIGHT. I'VE NEVER SEEN SUCH AN OVERWHELMING # OF STUDENTS WAITLISTED ANYWHERE! </p>

<p>THIS EVENT, I BELIEVE, SHOWS THAT THE SCHOOL IS FAILING, MORE THAN ANYTHING. IF WASHU WERE ECONOMICALLY SAFE, THEY WOULD NOT HAVE WAITLISTED SO MANY OF ITS OBVIOUSLY QUALIFIED APPLICANTS. IN ADDITION, THE SCHOLARSHIPS FOR WHICH MANY OF YOU APPLIED FOR WERE PROBABLY TRIMMED BACK IN NUMBER OF APPLICANTS AND MONEY GIVEN. EVEN FA WAS PROBABLY CUT, SINCE IF THEY CAN SQUEEZE $200K OUT OF A RICH PERSON, THEY'D RECEIVE MORE MONEY WHICH THEY DESPERATLY NEED.</p>

<p>IN SHORT, THIS IS NOT THE BEST TIME FOR APPLICANTS TO BE APPLYING FOR COLLEGE IN TERMS OF ACCEPTANCES BECAUSE SO MANY SCHOOLS ARE INDEED FAILING. IT'S PROBABLY FOR THE BEST, THEN, THAT YOU WERE NOT ACCEPTED BECAUSE, IF MY PREDICTIONS ARE CORRECT, WASHU'S STATUS WILL SHARPLY DECLINE OVER THE NEXT FIVE YEARS. THEIR FUNDING IS LIMITED AND I BELIEVE WASHU'S GREATNESS HAS REACHED A PEAK AND IS DECLINING AS I TYPE. FIND A BETTER SCHOOL (I.E. ECONOMICALLY STABLE)!</p>

<p>Let me make myself clear: I'm not being rude or condescending to anybody or even to the college; this is simply my POV of WUSTL in its current state in the economy and its admissions decisions. In addition, I don't know any insider info...these are just my assumptions and hypotheses. </p>

<p>I'm also not knocking anybody who was accepted of the 1400 admits (congrats btw, take advantage of being in such a wonderful school before funding is lost)...</p>

<p>And I know it's ironic that my screenname is WUSTLHOPEFUL, and I'm writing this statement, but this college was my son's favorite choice as well. Good luck with the rest of college admissions, and may you be accepted by every other college!</p>

2

<p>i think more than 1400 students were accepted. I don’t know their yield rate but it’s probably 20 or 25% like other top 15 schools, which means they have to accept at least a few thousand to reach their goal of 1400 students. </p>

<p>Your point of view has some valid points, but i think the biggest reason that people are angry for being put on the waitlist is because they had hopes of getting into HYPSM, and being put on the waitlist (especially so early, before they hear back from hypsm) destroys their confidence. </p>

<p>Let me just remind everyone, HYPSM are completely different schools. They don’t know you’ve been waitlisted and you have just a good a chance as you thought you had before. Good luck to all.</p>

3

<p>you’re right
they probably accepted around 4000
the number 1400 on the letter is a very big misconception for most of the people…</p>

4

<p>Interesting how quickly POV changes when you aren’t accepted. </p>

<p>I agree that the waitlist does seem to be exceptionally large, and that there are many very qualified applicants who’ve been put on it. But much of what you’re going on about is just unsubstantiated ranting. As has been pointed out repeatedly, WashU did not accept 6% of its applicants, more like 20%.</p>

5

<p>People complain every year about too many qualified students being placed on Wash U’s waitlist. It isnt unique to this year and thus can’t be blamed on the current economic situation or what you perceive as Wash U’s financial crisis. There are simply more qualified students that apply than they have room for. See this link from 2006. <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/washington-university-st-louis/157867-previous-years-waitlists.html?highlight=Wash+waitlist[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/washington-university-st-louis/157867-previous-years-waitlists.html?highlight=Wash+waitlist&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I think the difference between Wash U and other selective schools that reject/WL a large percentage of applicants is that students, for a variety of reasons, expect to get into Wash U and then are disappointed if they don’t. It is a crap shoot. Just because you didn’t get in, doesn’t mean you didn’t have stellar stats or that you won’t get into some other great school.</p>

6

<p>I agree with you in your POV that this terrible economic time will weed out some of the mid top tier colleges like WUSTL and force them deteriorate rapidly. My S applied for merit scholarship, didn’t get it, applied to another special program, didn’t get it, and now waitlisted for RD. After not getting invited for MS finalist, he didn’t even bother to update them with his national merit finalist selection or other recent accomplishments.</p>

<p>After flooding with so many ad papers before the application, then wait listing him, probably because his EFC is on the order of $20k range, it really reflects badly on them. My other children won’t enven bother with WUSTL, but I will strongly urge all of my friends not to. This school left a really bad taste in our mouths.</p>

7

<p>@nooob:
what is HYSPM? </p>

<p>@RandomFactor:
so then, what do they mean by 1400? 4000 is a more realistic #, I agree, but this is a number that has be printed, as opposed to 4000 (which both you **and I ***assumed *as well).</p>

<p>@tjd:
Firstly, I didn’t like the school in the first place fyi. My son did, however, and so I hoped for the best. My opinion didn’t really “change,” but became more vocalized. So your snide remark is quite frankly uncalled for. In addition, or rather multiplication and division, last time I checked, 1400/23000 * 100 is about 6%. With 4000, the percentage is around 17%, which is what my son and I expected as I commented to RandomFactor, but looking at the printed letter with their statistics, I stand by 6%. In addition, much of my argument comes from the scholarship round of admission decisions, in addition to the decisions released 24 hrs. ago.</p>

<p>@M’sMom:
I understand that WUSTL does indeed have a heavy WL every year, but I believe this year’s been a stark exception with the sheer quality of applicants being WLed. Those are interesting numbers to point out though! Thanks!</p>

<p>@toughyear:
Thanks…it has left a bad taste in our mouths as well. </p>

<p>@all:
Again, there’s no need to be harsh. I’m just trying to calm some people down about being WLed.</p>

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<p>look – this is a school that admits anywhere between 17-20% of its applicants based on recent year’s data. you must have known before you applied that there’s something like an 80% liklelihood that you wouldn’t be accepted.</p>

<p>highly selective admissions is random at any college. nearly everyone who applies is “qualified.” you, as a student, wouldn’t bother wasting your time applying to a school that you aren’t qualified to attend, right? it just comes down to there’s just not enough room at the school to accept all of the qualified applicants. you are just one of 23,000 similar people. </p>

<p>whether you’re waitlisted/rejected, it doesn’t matter – you didn’t get in. face it. it’s just one school of many. at least if you’re waitlisted, you have the possibility of a 2nd chance. sure, WUSTL probably waitlists more people than its peer colleges, and it has been debated on this forum 100 times the pros/cons to doing so. this isn’t new - they’ve been doing it for YEARS. </p>

<p>if you don’t like the idea of a wait list, then what you should do is call a school before you apply and say “if you can’t accept me, just reject me. i don’t want to be on your wait list if it comes to that.” i’m sure they’d love to hear that. </p>

<p>some of the people on this forum have too much of a superiority complex, and think that they’re too good for WUSTL and that’s why you were waitlisted. that is garbage and makes no sense. first, if you are over-qualified, why on earth would you bother applying to a school filled with people who are not as good as you? second, they have SAT scores/GPAs/class rank stats nearly identical to HYPS and better than many schools ranked above WUSTL. Any top 20 school is going to be very selective, and you’ll probably get into some, and get rejected from some. Any school with a < 20% admissions rate is going to be random, and being waitlisted/rejected has no implication that you are not ready/qualified/prepared to go there. </p>

<p>the applicant pool is filled of 23,000 people just like you and they can’t admit all of then. congrats to those who were lucky, and sorry to those who weren’t accepted. there should be no sympothy given to people who are surprised by these decisions – you need to do your research before you bother applying to highly selective schools. it’s not for the faint of heart and you really should have known that before you applied.</p>

9

<p>Regarding your interpretation of the admit rate, hopefully your son has better reading comprehension skills than you do. There is a difference between class size and admit rate; Harvard is still far more selective than WashU. </p>

<p>For someone who didn’t like WashU that much, you do seem quite upset about your son not getting in.</p>

10

<p>@keepitcoolidge
You are correct, 80% chance of non-acceptance is a valid statement. And also, you are correct about the lack of room at the college and the randomness of admissions. Your entire statement is wonderfully worded and correct. Let me explain my intentions: I’m simply trying to make people feel better. I knew that WUSTL was a reach for my son, as did many other WLed applicants I’m sure, and I’m not surprised with the admissions decision, but others are, and I’m trying to put a positive spin on this admission decision. Consider it a good deed…</p>

11

<p>@tjd:
There is a difference b/w class size and admit rate…you’re right…not going to argue that…and again, I’m not upset or whining or complaining or anything like that. I’m trying to make others feel better and continue this college nightmare with some confidence. No need to be rude about it.</p>

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<p>It’s getting very tiresome to continue reading ranting posts by those who don’t even read the letter properly (i.e., understand that it refers to 1,400 SPOTS in the freshman class, not that only 1,400 were ACCEPTED). Critical reading scores? hmmmm - with yield rates pretty similar at all the top schools, I think the acronym should be changed to WHYPS, anyway! And WUSTL did not lose any more endownment money than the other IVIES - all have been affected just like all of us have. WUSTL is not a safety nor a sure bet for anyone. When the other school’s results come out, all will be waitlising many more students than in the past (last year was very similar) - this is not just a WUSTL phenomena - wait and see - there may be more students with multiple waitlists rather than multiple acceptances.</p>

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<p>WUSTLHOPEFUL, to answer one of your questions, HYPSM stands for Harvard-Yale-Princeton-Stanford-MIT. You may see variations of it like HYP (the original version) or HYPS (without MIT).</p>

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<p>Or, as I suggested above - WHYPS!</p>

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<p>WashU has to put many applicants on the waitlist since they are unsure of their yield rate due to this difficult economic time. If you want, just tell them to take you out. Harvard has about 35,000 apps this year and they have already filled up 1/3 with legacies, athletes, kids of major donors ($2 million or more), and kids of influential people (senators, congressmen, etc…). There are just too many well qualified kids applying to too few spots. Many of us have gone to state schools who got into the ivys because of financial constraints and have done great so take heart. Tell your kids and yourself that successful people are the ones that can make lemonade out of lemons.</p>

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<p>Learn how to make others feel good about it without dragging down a very good school that many people are sacrificing dearly to attend. </p>

<p>BTW, I expect that my D, who was accepted, will likely NOT be able to attend. Our disappointment came a couple of weeks ago, when she was rejected by all 4 of the merit scholarships she applied for. It was hard to accept, since so many on CC were accepted as finalists, and her stats were comparable, and ECs strong. But the fact that she wasn’t a scholarship finalist didn’t mean they didn’t give out 100+ scholarships, so what is your point about economic stability? They don’t claim to be need blind, so what is your point there? They are one of the very few schools that allow you to stack outside merit aid with institutional financial aid, so what is your beef there? </p>

<p>Your claim of trying to make others feel good comes off as unsubstantiated whining.</p>

17

<p>@palmalk:
Oh…ok…thanks for making that clear! I didn’t intend on everybody ganging up and criticizing me. Also, I understand that Ivies lost money too; I’m just trying to keep people positive. Thanks also for apologizing for the sarcasm–this is not the response I expected to this board in the slightest.</p>

18

<p>“Harvard has about 35,000 apps this year and they have already filled up 1/3 with legacies, athletes, kids of major donors ($2 million or more), and kids of influential people (senators, congressmen, etc…).”</p>

<p>LMAO - I find these described Harvard (and Stanford and Yale, etc.) tactics far more annoying than WUSTL’s waitlisting! (I’m sure that at least some of those 1/3 would have been accepted on their own merit, right? right?)</p>

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<p>Yes, I’m sure that some would be admitted on their own merit. My point is that the percent of actual admits for the rest of us regular folk is wayyyy lower than published number would show.</p>

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<p>@tjd and palmalk: Please read the PMs I sent.</p>

<p>@all: I’m sorry for the misconception. After palmalk’s explanation, I realize my error in judgment. I was only trying to help, and to see that I’ve clearly offended people was not what I intended at all. Best of luck to everyone, and hopefully we can just let this thread die out.</p>

<p>btw, how do you close a thread if you can? I’d love to to end this.</p>