My (semi-coherent) Admissions Story

Applying to College Admission Stories
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So I am flew back to NJ yesterday, and did my accepted student’s day at WashU two days ago. I don’t think their way of doing things is very typical though - they don’t have any specific days dedicated to admitted students, they mix the prospective juniors and admitted seniors together for almost all events, except for one info session dedicated to the talking about freshman year. Not sure if this is superior to a big admitted students, I’ll have to attend some of those and then decide.

But I digress.

ACADEMICS:

Since I visited on a Friday and had a ton of accepted students things to do, I didn’t get a chance to sit in on any classes, but I’m not too concerned about this. I know WashU is a great school, and I’m sure if I choose to go there that I will be challenged. I talked to another girl who sat in on an introductory bio class that was lecture-style and more than 100 students, but that seems typical for any school. The intro classes are always bigger. I also sat in on an info session for CAS, which was ok, but not super helpful since I’m undecided. The school seemed very flexible with majors and minors, lots of kids majoring in more than one thing and sometimes across different schools. The only real downside is that WashU doesn’t have a specific IR program, which I’m kind of interested in. They have an international and area studies program, but I’m not really sure how that compares to IR. I guess I’ll have to poke around online to check it out in more detail.

CAMPUS:

After visiting, all I can say is wow. The campus has to be among the most beautiful I’ve seen - IMO, it was nicer than Princeton or Harvard. Granted, we did visit on one of the most beautiful days imaginable, 70 degrees and not a cloud in the sky, and the cherry blossom trees on campus were blooming, but still, the campus was amazing. The facilities were to die for - really nice dorms, and a cleaning lady comes for the bathrooms twice a week even in rooms with a Jack and Jill style bathroom. Lots of places on campus to hang out, including the South40. If you’re not familiar with WashU’s campus, the South40 is an area specifically for sophomores and freshmen that’s across the street from the main part of campus. It was new, and modern, was beautifully landscaped and designed, and was kind of its own mini bubble. It had its own dining facility, its own gym, student-run stores, basketball courts, a grassy area, and a beach volleyball court. I’d be sad to leave as a junior lol. As the ultimate stamp of approval, my dad, who is critical of everything, said that he couldn’t really find anything wanting. I could go on and on about this, but I’m going to move on :P.

STUDENTS AND FACULTY:

Coming from NJ, I thought the people were incredibly friendly. Lots of students passing by said hi, and everyone was more than willing to help me out as I was squinting at my map in confusion. The staff were so nice - we wandered into an academic building looking for a model of the Mars Rover and a professor walking by showed us one of the other “highlight” exhibits. The women at the dining hall said they viewed all the students as their children and always tell them to stop stressing during finals. An admissions officer greeted us and offered us a parking permit in case we had forgotten ours. Just really great overall. No one fell asleep at any point. :stuck_out_tongue:

SURROUNDING AREA:

Really nice. I was worried about this - in NJ, all I’ve ever heard is that St. Louis is a crime-ridden, gang-infested city, but as with many things in life, that proved to be a wild generalization and exaggeration. The area right around WashU was great, very up-scale, and it’s right next to Forest Park, which is basically the Central Park of St. Louis. Forest Park even had a zoo and two big museums inside of it that are all free to the public - definite perk (fun fact: I’m a little bit of a cheapskate). Maybe 4-5 blocks in the other direction is the Loop. The Loop is about 6 blocks of little restaurants, funky vintage clothing shops, a movie theater, and a bowling alley. It had a very bohemian vibe, lots of street musicians, lots of young people. If you’ve ever been to Haight-Ashbury, it was like a smaller version of that, or a less commercial version of Venice Beach.

MISCELLANEOUS:

WashU offered me a travel grant, which I liked. I know it’s all psychological, but it makes me feel like they really want me, which is admittedly a nice feeling :). They also gave me free lunch and free taxi vouchers.
WashU students all also get free access to the Metro system - see my note about me being a cheapskate.
The prestige of the school is a nice bonus, although it’s not too well known in NJ. There is something to being able to say that you go to one of the top 15 schools in the country.
They have a satirical newspaper, club gymnastics team and club fencing team, which I like, but no color guard, which sucks a little bit.
Being faraway from home is both a blessing and a curse - I feel like I can really spread my wings and I think it makes cutting the cord easier, but it makes the logistics of everything harder.
Everyone who has posted on the Facebook group thus far seems very cool, (unlike the Tufts Facebook group, where there have already been two minor meltdowns and people paging the moderator to delete posts and/or kick people from the group).

OVERALL:

Really outstanding. Everything was just great, I’m not really sure what else I could have asked for. I think I’m just a little hesitant that I saw it on such a great day, that it’s not really like that all the time, plus I’m still holding a torch for Tufts, so I’m trying not to let myself fall too far in love with any school. But it’s a fantastic option, and I honestly would kind of feel like a fool checking the “no” box when I let them know my final decision.

Next up, I have to decide whether or not to go visit William & Mary or Oxford College of Emory. The way the schedule works out, I really can’t visit both, which is a shame. I’ve already visited William & Mary, but I feel like it’s more likely that I’ll go there than Emory. If anyone has any opinions or info about either school, I’d love it if you could weigh in.

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So what did you decide? Sounds like WashU was a great visit!

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@mom2and check out this thread: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/18419699

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Hey all! As you can see my by most recent thread (linked by Corinthian), I have still not decided between Tufts and WashU. Mostly for my own benefit, I am going to make a similar write-up for Tufts as I did for WashU, but if it helps anyone else out, I am always happy to be of service. I visited Tufts on Friday, so I’m a little behind, but hey, it happens. After I’m out of all the decision-making craziness, I might post my impressions of William and Mary too.

ACADEMICS:

Tufts is kind of cool here. I’m undecided, but everyday I’m leaning more and more towards psychology (but ugh, 4 more years of grad school!), and Tufts has a pretty unique psychology program. They have 5 different majors that fall into the “Psych” category, general Psychology, Engineering Psychology, Cognitive and Brain Science, Biopsychology, and Clinical Psychology (and yes, all for UG programs). That gives me a ton of flexibility to explore psych - definite plus. And then my other interest is IR, and I think Tufts’ IR department really needs no introduction. I sat in on two mock lectures while I was at Jumbo Day, Psychology and Law, which was pretty cool, and I liked the professor; and something which sold itself as being about the apocalypse and how to escape it, but ended up being a deep philosophical conversation about our quest for justice being what is going to destroy us, and that went pretty much over my head. I mean, it was interesting, but the professor had a lot of jargon he was using that I had trouble keeping track of, I felt like I needed to take notes. Only con here is that I went online later and looked at their course list and the setup was slightly irritating, but if that’s my biggest complaint, I think this gets the green light lol.

CAMPUS:

Kind of an interesting set-up, very different from WashU. The whole campus is built up on a hill, and some of the buildings spill over down one side of the hill, so I’d have pretty great calves if I went here! One thing to consider is that quite a few roads split the campus, it feels very much like you’re in a city. The buildings were nice, the exteriors were all very well-maintained, but nothing really floored me. The dorms were kind of a let-down. They were reasonably spacious, but some of it was dated, and the common areas were pretty lackluster. A bunch of outdated green chairs and a TV with a Gamecube hooked up to it. The bathrooms situation was also kind of strange. It appeared that one of the bathrooms servicing maybe 6 people had only one shower and one toilet, which seemed like a serious design flaw. But then on the other side of the hall, a bathroom servicing maybe 8-10 people had 4 toilets and an indeterminate number of showers. There were also missing tiles along the stairs, just little things that made the building look old. The dining halls were nice, one looked straight out of the 60s with the thick wavy glass cubes, but the other was very modern, lots of seating at both. The dorms are probably the biggest strike against Tufts. All I could think when walking around was “WashU had nicer ______.”

STUDENTS AND FACULTY:

Great. Enthusiastic is probably the right word, there was an activities fair where a bunch of clubs were trying to recruit incoming freshmen, and you could feel how passionate everyone was. One group stopped me to talk to me about a pre-orientation thing that wasn’t really my speed, but they were so excited about it! They couldn’t stop gushing about the program and how they had enjoyed it so much as freshmen, how they still keep in contact with all of the friends they made through the program, and how they were volunteering to run it this year. They cared, and that seemed to be a common theme amongst all the students, there were kids playing Quidditch out on the quad, and someone even had a slackline set up (I have just started slacklining), all trying to attract the new freshmen. The faculty members I was in contact with were very nice, I really liked the one psychology professor, he seemed very (again) enthusiastic about teaching.

SURROUNDING AREA:
Medford did not impress me. There were a few little shops and restaurants, but obviously the big draw is Boston and Cambridge. From what I’ve heard, it really does sound like Boston is one of the best college towns - it’s loaded with students, has pretty good public transportation, and you still have all the fun stuff associated with a big city. Despite what everyone on CC has told me, I still have my lingering doubts about how much Tufts students actually go into the city. Three different Tufts students/alumni have mentioned this, and it’s come up on each encounter with Tufts (at both visits to campus, and when an alum visited my high school). Seems to be one of those things where people aren’t always going into Boston, but there’s certainly nothing stopping someone from going and having a good time.

MISCELLANEOUS:
Tufts has been a top choice since I visited spring break junior year.

For some reason, I could see myself here more than WashU, even though Tufts seems to have more flaws than WashU. I think I got a better feel for Tufts’ personality, WashU didn’t really seem to have a personality when I visited, just friendly lol.
Jumbos>Bears
No club gymnastics team, but they do have a fencing club and the Tufts Dance Collective, which is uniquely Tufts.
No on campus color guard, but one of the best winterguards in the whole country is based right out of Cambridge which is pretty crazy. I’m not sure I’d join, the time commitment is crazy, but it’s an interesting option to have.
I didn’t like Tufts as much on my second visit. I don’t know why, I think it might be because I had zero expectations the first time I visited, and this time I was hoping for a magical experience that would make me commit before I left campus.
I can hop right on the Acela to get to Boston, which is very convenient.

A lot of my friends are telling me to go to Tufts, they’re just like, “I see you at Tufts.” Not really a determining factor, but it’s interesting that a lot of people seem to see that in me.

BTW, I flipped a coin, just to see what would happen. It came out for WashU, and I immediately started thinking of everything that I would be missing out on at Tufts, so I flipped again, just to see if I got the same sinking feeling if it came out Tufts. It came out for WashU three more times before I was like, “Yeah, this isn’t really getting me anywhere.” Although it seems that at least one quarter would like me to go to WashU. :stuck_out_tongue:

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@butterfreesnd I went to the same apocalypse class, and it went over my head also. He kept on saying “do you understand?” and I was like, no… no, I do not. There was actually a pretty vigorous discussion throughout and at the end of the class, and I was like “is everyone smarter than me, even the 18 yr olds?”. Could be!

I was also pretty disappointed by the dorm tour we had- it was really outdated. They said there are some nicer dorms on campus, so I actually give them points for showing us the more representative freshmen dorms.

Regardless, I’m not the one going to college- my D was overjoyed and enrolled at Tufts later that night. I know I’d rather see her at Tufts than WashU but that’s mostly because I don’t know WashU that well. It just seems to lack a slightly edgy vibe that you get at Tufts.

One important thing might be that you’d likely be living off campus Junior and Senior year at Tufts. Given WashU’s resources and surrounding location I’m guessing they guarantee housing all 4 years. So if you didn’t love Medford, this might be a factor. (But Somerville/Davis Square is better anyway)

Good luck with the decision.

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My rising D junior is living off just off campus this summer in a lovely apartment on a street full of Queen Anns, Victorians and the like. She is so excited to be a paid intern on-campus this summer and at the idea of enjoying Tufts’ “edgy vibe”, Davis and Harvard Squares, plus Boston and the in the “off-season”. She’s currently in a dorm near the dining hall that is not nearly as bad as she thought it would be. It’s not that Tufts’ dorms are skeevy, they are just uninspired (exception being the newer Sophia Gordon building, I believe). But this is a small factor in her larger experience of the school.

And cool to know about the Winterguard outside of Cambridge.

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Not sure what you decided on today, but my son had this issue last year. He applied to tufts ED2 but was getting good feedback from WUSTL, which he had visited 2 weeks before for his interview, and his admission rep also had him meet with a prof in his intended major after the interview. During that 2 week period, he went through the pros & cons of tufts vs wustl (& also USC bc he was nominated for their full tuition merit award). He ultimately chose to stick with his tufts application as ED2, rather than convert it to RD, bc he preferred tufts’ vibe/culture & location. Sure enough, he got into tufts & Wustl on the same day bc surprisingly, he was nominated for a merit award at WUSTL. No regrets. He’s had an amazing first year at tufts, and often goes into Davis & harvard squares, Boston only occasionally, but next semester he’s taking a class for his non western civ requirement that will have him using the BMFA often. The truth is with these two schools, you can’t go wrong. They are more similar than dissimilar. And that’s why they often attract the same student.

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I just wanted to update everyone on my 11th hour decision yesterday (drum roll please):

I will be attending Washington University in St. Louis this fall!

It took me many, many hours of indecision to finally figure it out (and a short bout of buyer’s regret), but I finally decided on WashU for a lot of different reasons:

  • The fact that it's far from home. I realized very late in the game that one of the reasons I wanted to go to CA so badly was that I wanted a chance to experience a new culture, some place that wasn't the constant rushing and fast talking of the northeast, it just took me a while to realize that while CA would be different, so would St. Louis.

-The campus. WashU honestly had everything I wanted, and it was all in a nicer package than Tufts. This took a lot for me to accept as a reason, because it seems superficial, but my parents kind of laid it out as “if you have two equally good cars, but one is in the color you want, is it really that bad to use that as a determining factor?”

-They have gymnastics and fencing, and these are both things that I felt could be good in making me feel more comfortable on campus (and just being things I like to do).

-One of my big hangups was that I thought that the student body at Tufts would somehow suit me more, but as I looked through the posts on the respective Facebook groups, I realized that any student could be swapped out for any other and it didn’t appear that the class would really change. There were more similarities than differences.

-I was more excited about WashU. When I was walking around the campus, I remember thinking multiple times, “I wish I could show everyone how amazing it is here!” I showed everyone the pictures I took as soon as I got back. In the notes I took about each school, I saw that I had three pages of gushing pages of notes about WashU, and only one about Tufts.

So yeah! They are both fantastic schools, and as I told my mom at one point, “Do you think I could do part of each week in Boston and part in St. Louis?” but, unfortunately, that’s not an option :P. There was no right or wrong option, but I think I made a choice that will ultimately benefit me. As I get further removed from this, and my emotions calm down, and AP exams end (:P), I will probably post both my opinions on W&M, and some advice for the class of 2020 and beyond.

Thank you so much to everyone who’s followed thus far.

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Congratulations @butterfreesnd and thank you for sharing your story. Hope you’ll check back in during fall semester to let us know how things are going!

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Yay see you there!!!

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YAY! You’ll love it!

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Congratulations! Everyone I know who went there loved it. Thank you for sharing your journey. I think it will help many students and parents. Good luck.

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Congratulations to the OP. You had some great choices at the end and sound like you will thrive at WashU. Your story shows that it isn’t necessarily crazy to apply to 20 schools. Also it sounds like you didn’t need to shop FA offers so that made your situation a lot easier than most. And it sounds like you’re ending up at a school that was a last minute addition to your list. It was very interesting to read and follow along and best wishes at WashU.

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Congrats @butterfreesnd! You’re going to do well at WashU. As a fellow New Jerseyan who was also shut out of an entire state during the admissions season (Massachusetts), I’m happy that you found a school where you’ll be happy. Sounds like it was one hell of a decision to make!

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I promised to give out advice to everyone because I always liked those threads when I was applying and searching (although really, I am in no way qualified to give out advice, so many tablespoons of salt should be taken with this). In addition, I am leaving for WashU soon and am feeling rather sentimental. So, without further ado, here’s my advice to the Class of 2020 and beyond:

  • Take hard classes, get good grades, be involved. Like, if you're a sophomore or younger, this is all I have to say to you.
  • Keep track of essay ideas. I don't know if this is just me, but occasionally something would happen to me, and I would think "This would make a great topic for a college essay!" Just write it down, in your phone, or in a notepad or on a post-it, anything where it can be easily referenced later on when you're all out of ideas.
  • Make your own Big Chart. Big Chart is the only reason I got through the college admissions process. Big Chart is a big poster board that used to hang above my desk. For the last half of junior year, I listed out every college I had even the vaguest interest in applying to, color-coded by reach, match and safety. There were over 90 schools on Big Chart. I slowly crossed them out as I did more research, until 70 were left and I realized I would be dead before I finished. As I entered senior year, I flipped Big Chart over and used the back to list all the schools I applied to, their due date, if I had sent SATs, ACTs, and transcripts, if I had completed the essays, and how many essays there were, etc. Big Chart is great because it's so concrete, and unlike an excel spreadsheet, you see it ALL. THE. TIME. It's a constant reminder of what you have to do and when it needs to get done by. Without Big Chart, I would probably be sitting in my room twiddling my thumbs this fall. All the praise goes up to Big Chart and all the glory falls down on me.

-Start early. You think you’re going to start early enough, but you’re not. This is especially true if you’re applying to 12+ schools and you’re bad at reusing essays like me. I told myself all my essays would be done by like December, and I finished applying on January 15th, literally a few hours before the American deadline.

  • Request interviews. I'm fairly introverted and thought my interviews would probably go poorly and reflect badly on me, but I wish I had requested interviews at Kenyon, American and Midd. Requesting interviews where they are optional really conveys your interest in the school, and hopefully gets your name rattling around in the brain of an admissions officer. Also, prepare for interviews. I was shocked at the number of my friends who literally walked into their college interviews not knowing a single thing. I would have a stock list of questions (How did you feel career opportunities were coming out of X? Did you think the student body had a lot of school spirit? etc.) and then maybe 5-8 school or program specific questions. Google X University interview form - sometimes this turns up the form that the interviewer will have to fill out to fill out about you and questions they're supposed to ask you. It worked for me with Georgetown and Harvard, there are probably more that it would be helpful for. If you get one of those, it's a slam dunk. And bring a resume - I did have one interviewer ask me for one.

-If there’s something you really want, don’t feel like you have to compromise. For me, I wanted to be in CA. I wanted to be in CA so badly, that I told my Georgetown interviewer that I wanted to be in CA. And then, in an act of unbelievable stupidity, I applied to (arguably) the three most selective colleges in CA, and USC. No CA matches or safeties. I was disappointed in April when CA didn’t pan out, when in reality, I had set myself up to fail. So if you know you want a school in the South, or that offers study abroad in Japan, or with a huge D1 football team, or with a drop-dead gorgeous campus, don’t just cast that aside when making your list. Try to ensure that at least some of your matches and safeties fulfill the seemingly-frivolous-but-important-to-you criteria. This seems obvious, but for me, and for some of my friends, it wasn’t. (continues to next post)

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  • There was a HUGE debate on CC about shotgunning and whether or not it's a good idea. Personally, I think that for the right student, and performed with the right technique, shotgunning is a great option. I also believe that as schools get more and more selective, shotgunning is going to become more common. If you:
    • Are looking for merit money
    • Are not concerned with app fees (either due to fee waivers, or parents that don't mind paying)
    • Are undecided wrt what you want in a school
    • Want to apply to multiple schools with <15% acceptance rates
    • Have a masochistic streak or are incredibly disciplined/organized Then you should consider shotgunning. IMO, you can't really count schools you apply to that have really low acceptance rates as schools you have a solid chance of getting into. Whenever people question me as to why I applied to so many schools, I tell them that I knew right off the bat that I wasn't getting into 5 of them (HYPS and Brown), and that at 7 more I had a slim chance at best (WashU, Emory, Gtown, CMC, Pomona, Midd, Tufts). If you take those away, I only applied to 8 schools I had a realistic shot at. And of those, I got rejected/WLed by 4! You could argue that maybe I would have had more success with a focused application list, but I couldn't really focus because I didn't know what I wanted when I applied, and didn't even know 100% until May 1st. Being undecided with major/location/size just broadens your search so much that it can be overwhelming. But shotgunning doesn't just mean applying to all 8 Ivies + MIT + Stanford and then waiting by your mailbox! Proper shotgunning technique (IMO) is:
    • Applying to a mix of reach, match, and safety schools. You still need safeties and matches, you cannot expect to get into a reach. Your list will probably have more reaches than a normal list, but that's the beauty of shotgunning, you can shoot a little higher.
    • Making sure that schools are still a good fit for you. Ending up with 10 acceptances to schools you don't like or can't afford is almost as bad as being rejected everywhere.
    • Starting EARLY. This is doubly imperative for shotgunners. You will be writing a lot of essays. I made this mistake and it ended up impacting me negatively. Also leave time for any schools not on CA (MIT, Georgetown) where you will have to re-request rec letters, etc.
    • Apply early when possible. If you get into one of your top choices early, then you can drastically cut down on the number of other apps you have to send. I botched this - don't be like me, kids. :P
    • If you find a school with no essays/an essay that already matches an essay you've written, apply! I applied to Midd, WashU, Emory, and Kenyon this way, and I got two acceptances out of it, including the school I'm attending. This PDF was useful for finding schools without supplements, but looking through CA to find schools with essays that you've already written takes a bit longer. http://www.prepmatters.com/sites/default/files/Schools%20WO%20supplements%20Chart%202013-14%20FINAL.pdf
    • Have no shame about your shotgunning! So many people will tell you that you're crazy, that it's unnecessary, that it's a waste of time and money - don't listen to them. If you, the applicant, truly and honestly want to apply to 15+ schools (not your parents or your teachers or your GC), you'll find the time and you'll do the work. I even took a sort of perverse pride in my shotgunning - after writing 30+ unique essays, I felt like I could conquer anything.
  • And for making a final decision - buyer's remorse is real. I had one intense feeling right on May 1st that I needed to switch to Tufts, but I let it go, and stuck with WashU. For weeks afterwards I had lingering doubts - had I made the right choice? Was I missing out on something drastic at Tufts? But I knew that I had to stick with WashU. I put away all of my free Tufts stuff, all the Tufts papers and booklets, hid notifications from the Tufts Facebook page, and I just avoided everything about Tufts. I even avoided looking at elephant-related things for a few weeks :P. And it helped a lot - out of sight, out of mind was true for me.

So yeah. I don’t know when I’ll be back on CC - I find myself here less and less often now. I guess I’ve finally moved out of the obsessing-about-college-admissions stage of my life, but I have learned mountains of valuable information here, and been able to cut through the uncertainty at my high school (Oh, your ACT is your good one? Only Southern and Midwestern schools like that). It’s been real, CC. B)