<p>@vickmareddy- Stop spewing off so much nonsense. Who are you to know why a student gets into a school or not? In addition, just because Cornell is part of the Ivy League does not make it more prestigious than a school like WUSTL. I think that the academic quality at WUSTL is on par with several Ivy League institutions. In addition, if you really want to get down to rankings, although I don’t really support the methodology of the.USNWR, WUSTL is ranked about 1 spot higher. However, this does not mean that one school is better than the other.</p>
<p>And by the way, my son got into WUSTL, and everyone he has told about his acceptance (we live in Florida) has been duly impressed. </p>
<p>You are not an authority on college admissions nor do you know everyone’s circumstances, so please don’t act like you’ve seen and done everything.</p>
<p>@Johnson181: Not COMPLETE rubbish. I talked with an admission officer from a top 5 school, asking why WashU w/l so may applicants, and he said it was because they KNEW they wouldn’t come (aka overqualified). In addition, an adcom at a top 20 school was quoted to have said earlier in the year “When I see a kid win’s Intel, I know he’s gonna go to Harvard or MIT, so I just reject them to increase our yield rate.”</p>
<p>Btw I was waitlisted at WashU but accepted into HYPSM.</p>
<p>First off, knowing that an applicant won’t come is not equivalent to said applicant being overqualified - maybe they displayed no interest whatsoever? Additionally, the person wasn’t even an admissions officer at washu, why should we believe what he said? Secondly, I looked at that twitter account, and can you say unprofessional? Even if this account is for real (which I doubt), I wouldn’t make the mistake of generalizing what ze says to every admissions officer everywhere. Also, anecdotes ≠ proof.</p>
<p>Edit: That same account also posted this: “I can only think of a few ways to guarantee you admission. Win Intel, get a rec letter from Obama, or donate 20 million dollars.” So, either it’s fake, or the admissions officer has Dissociative Identity Disorder.</p>
<p>My d preferred Wash U over Cornell primarily for the size of the school, vibe, students and facilities. I agree that if you believe the academics are equivalent, your s or d should evaluate the school for campus life and the “fit”. There is a big difference in the campus layout/size. We never visited UT Austin because it seemed too large for what she was comfortable with. In the end, she did not decide to attend either though it was a bittersweet decision. She visited Wash U twice so PM me if you need any specifics with her impression (engineering though).</p>
<p>WashU’s got a better pre med program. Much better med school. And @vikramreddy: Anyone with the slightest knowledge about med schools knows that Cornell doesn’t compare with WashU. Further more, students chose washU for pre med over higher ranked school like Uchicago and JHU because they love the atmosphere at WashU.</p>
<p>WashU’s got smaller class sizes which is clearly a plus</p>
<p>WashU’s got better campus housing. 1st in the nation</p>
<p>WashU’s got better campus dining. Top 5 in the nation.</p>
<p>Clayton, St Louis, the porsche suburb that WashU’s located in >> Ithaca</p>
<p>Better weather at St louis.</p>
<p>And cornell has more prestige so it attracts many students who are there just because it’s an Ivy League. </p>
<p>So you should probably look into all of those points.</p>
<p>Suffice it to say that both schools are great schools. No one can prove that one school is truly better; perhaps Cornell is a better fit for some, and WUSTL for others. Each school has its own attributes. Years after you graduate from college, no one is going to ridicule you for choosing one school over another. FWIW, I don’t even know (nor do I care) where many of my friends went to college.</p>
<p>Re Cornell v WashU, what’s right for one person may not be right for another. One school may have a stronger dept than the other and there may be other factors such as those mentioned that influence a student’s decision… Sometimes a prospective student sets foot on a campus and it “clicks” and they know they can see themselves there for 4 or more years. Other times,it doesn’t and they won’t even apply as when my son looked at my alma mater and described it as, “hideous”. As for WashU, after touring 20+ campuses with my sons over the years, it is the most well designed, beautiful campus with some of the strongest programs in the nation in his chosen field. He was fortunate enough to be accepted but decided to take a gap year ( or two) to pursue other interests first. Hopefully that opened up a spot on the waitlist for someone here.</p>
<p>I picked WashU over Cornell and I am Premed.
I liked both schools.
Because Cornell has an affiliation with the state of NY, it is much larger than most Ivies.
It is also really cold. The year I visited they had snow in late October!
I didn’t like that Cornell was out in the middle of nowhere. It took forever for us to get there.
The Fr dorms at Cornell were very nice also.</p>
<p>vickramreddy: Looking at some of your previous posts, I see you were in the top 20% of your class, with a 3.6-3.7 GPA. I would guess that might have something to do with not being accepted.
My son is a premed at WashU, ( and, btw, was valedictorian of his high school.) I get a little tired of people accusing WashU of waitlisting the overqualified. As a previous poster stated, look at the stats of the admitted students. You will find that their test scores, class rank and GPAs are just as high as those waitlisted, and equal to or higher than many of the Ivys, JHU, Northwestern, U Chicago, and other top 10 schools.
Go research that so you actually have the facts instead of quoting some misinformed source.
And, while you’re at it, look up the percentage of WashU premeds that matriculate to medical school.</p>
<p>This forum page has turned from educational to entertainment. I LOVE IT! People who don’t know anything reply things they have heard. Stop being a bandwagon and actually search up the information!</p>
<p>WashU is no doubt a good school. But it does measure up to Cornell. Schools that have to care about interest can never be as prestigious as schools like Cornell and other ivies that can safely assume that most people that they admit will enroll. Compare the yields of WashU to Cornell. WashU’s yield is around 30% whereas Cornell’s yield is like 53%…that in itself is an indicator that Cornell is a more prestigious school that attracts smarter kids. And its just pure denial to say that WashU doesn’t wait list overqualified applicants. Its a fact that they do. Most schools release the number of people they wait list…WashU doesn’t because there’s literally thousands of people wait listed.</p>
<p>Too everyone that has been calling my arguments “rubbish” and have been personally attacking me…collegeconfidential is not a place to tear down each other…it’s a place to have respectful debates/discussions about colleges…Furthermore, if your argument rests on calling my arguments rubbish and personally attacking me…it just shows that your arguments are weak. So my request is for y’all to state your opinions like I stated my opinions and to refrain from being so combative against me. In other words, lets keep this civil.</p>
<p>Yes, Washu’s yield is lower than Cornell’s. Yes, Cornell is almost certainly more prestigious in most communities. No, that doesn’t mean that Cornell necessarily attracts smarter kids - there’s no logical connection between the two.</p>
<p>“And its just pure denial to say that WashU doesn’t wait list overqualified applicants. Its a fact that they do.”</p>
<p>Are you kidding me? YOU are the one making unsubstantiated claims here. If it is a “fact” that they do, I would expect to see more proof than simply that they waitlist a lot of applicants. Before claiming persecution on this thread, how about you stop labeling everyone who disagrees with your “facts” (which is the majority on this thread) as being in denial?</p>
<p>Vickramreddy- You are the one that came onto this forum acting like you are an authority on college admissions. Nobody is personally attacking you. We are only attacking your way of making your point, which has absolutely no basis or fact. Everybody has kept this conversation civil.</p>
<p>Not clear how a school can waitlist its most qualified applicants, yet still have 75th percentile SAT scores of 770 (reading) and 790 (math). Also not clear why a school would intentionally reduce the quality of its accepted students in order to increase its yield rate.</p>
<p>Doubtless Wash U does consider demonstrated interest, since the school is looking for students who want to be there. But for top applicants, this factor probably is less important. The very best students will get accepted many other places, and so any who end up going to Wash U will turn down many other top schools. So, for top students, Wash U does not need to look at demonstrated interest, because only those with actual interest will accept an admissions offer.</p>
<p>I signed up to be a WashU parent volunteer in California. Since I’m not an alum, I couldn’t do student interviews, just college fairs at area high schools, etc.
At the end of the admission cycle, I got the typical thank you letter for volunteering my time. In it, they disclosed the number of aps, acceptances, number wait listed, etc. I am not telling you what the number is, if they do not publish it. However, I can tell you that you are wrong about the wait list being larger than other schools in its peer group.<br>
By the way, having thousands on a waitlist is typical. Cornell had 3 ,156 on theirs this year.
Also, when a school goes to their wait list, they fill the spot with a student having the particular profile that they need. It isn’t only the academic strength of the applicant. It could be a particular major, demographic, or geographic.
I’m not sure why you are so hell bent on tearing down WashU. I have noticed that since WashU sends their decisions out first, there is always a lot of talk from kids on CC thinking they were rejected/waitlisted because they were over qualified. Then, two weeks later, the rejections and wait lists start rolling in from other schools. Most of the haters go away with a reality check. Many of the wait listed are appreciative that at least WashU saw something in their ap, instead of a flat out rejection.</p>
<p>vickramreddy is not even in college yet and can’t possibly prove to have any understanding of how the admissions works at this school or any other. I would let him be bitter and/or ignorant while taking his words with a grain of salt.</p>