<p>Honestly, to me yield and acceptance rates are terrible criteria for measuring the academic strength of schools. I think it absurd that people suggest that there is some direct correlation between a low acceptance rate and a good undergraduate institution...</p>
<p>I partially agree with that. While student quality is a huge part of the school, the school's overall strength and reputation should be accounted for, too. There is literally nothing that one cannot accomplish with a WUStl degree, but the school simply is not worthy of its ranking.</p>
<p>LOL, cavalier, you clearly have no idea what you're talking about. He would get burned by my guidance counselor (who served on an Ivy League school's adcom for ten years and instructed me on this topic before). Maybe you're intoxicated, cavalier? Or you got wait-listed at WashU.</p>
<p>Reading the know-it-all attitude of your posts is funny...the same with anyone else who accuses WashU of being the only school committing such a "deplorable act." Hahaha, you are clueless.</p>
<p>I'm intoxicated? How so? Do you even know what intoxication is? All I've asserted is that Washington University is overranked. Nothing more. It is an excellent school and it is an accomplishment to be accepted there. I did not apply there as a senior primarily due to its location.</p>
<p>I don't pretend to know it all, but I'm bringing a more realistic view to this thread than anyone else has thus far. And for that I'm clueless? Ok, bring on the ad hominem attacks.</p>
<ol>
<li>Actually I do know what it's like to be intoxicated.</li>
<li>Your view is far from "realistic." Not that the views of the others are necessarily much more realistic, but any adcom/experienced guidance counselor would probably roll on the floor and laugh if they read what you typed.</li>
</ol>
<p>You're up at a late hour. Maybe that's why you aren't getting it right? It's not that late over here in Cali.</p>
<p>What comparable departments does WashU have in the top 10???</p>
<p>Graduate rankings are largely irrelevant for what we're talking about.</p>
<p>Anyhow, I've had a good laugh.</p>
<p>No admissions counselor would laugh at what I said, which essentially was that WUStl is ranked about ten spots higher than it should be. As if this were an discussion that would demand a guidance counselor's input - lol.</p>
<p>Graduate rankings should be important in a school's overall ranking. A school with a number of highly regarded programs will have a great deal of academic gravitas; WUStl in no way has more than, say, Chicago or Berkeley. I don't know what rhetorical effect you're hoping for by calling my posts laughable, but it does little to refute my assertions. It makes you come off as weak.</p>
<p>Cavalier, I don't understand why you believe graduate programs should be included in the undergraduate rankings. You mention they add "academic gravitas," yet does that improve the undergraduate experience? Certain research opportunities could be more attainable at schools with reputable grad programs, however this favors WashU just as much as Chicago or Berkeley (especially Berkeley). Chicago has an outstanding economics graduate program and WashU has amazing internship and employment opportunities for undergrads at the world renowned Barnes-Jewish Hospital. I dont see how your position on grad programs favor the schools you mentioned over WashU.</p>
<p>Also, if you want to base the rankings entirely on grad programs and peer-assesment rating, then you will want to continue your crusade over to the Dartmouth board. They may not be too impressed.</p>
<p>It certainly seems to me that Cavalier302 certainly has an axe to grind with WashU. Not quite sure why. I don't see much substantiation with his argument. Like johnnyd said lots of schools practice "yield protection" to some extent. I would think it's hard to quantify. All these ranking scores by all the different groups are somewhat capricious, arbitray and subjective.</p>
<p>"maybe you're intoxicated, cavalier"</p>
<p>lololol</p>
<p>xoxo</p>
<p>HTH</p>
<p>Like many of the WUSTL students on here, I can understand the desire to defend our school. But to those that would attack WashU, what's with all this motivation? Do you have a personal vendetta against the school, or do you just get off listening to yourselves talk?</p>
<p>None. WashU is part of a larger obfuscation of the college-admissions system and the actual eminence of certain schools. </p>
<p>This is best seen in the distorted prism of USNews. </p>
<p>Penn being ranked above Stanford is a travesty.
Duke with 40% yield and 125 waitlist-accepteds this year being tied with Stanford, is even worse.
Both Penn and Duke over MIT is unacceptable. </p>
<p>WashU over Northwestern and Brown and Georgetown is unacceptable. The American people ranking ND fifth when it should barely crack the Top 25 is laughable.</p>
<p>Lani, the WUSTL bashing crowd/vendetta people sound very familiar, kind of like the the anti-Tufts vendetta crowd...</p>
<p>I'm not here to "bash" any school; I truly do want to know what comparable programs WashU has in the top 10.</p>
<p>U.S. news and every other undergraduate college ranking I have seen doesn't use how many top ten programs a university has as a criteria for a university's overall ranking. Complain about the ranking system to them not to us. Apparently, the ranking companies don't find it useful to rank that way for undergrads.</p>
<p>Even then, at the undergraduate level it really doesn't matter how many top ten programs a university has, especially if you plan to go onto graduate school.</p>
<p>US News is stupid.</p>
<p>Stop complaining about the rankings and start complaining about the system itself. The whole numbers game is a joke. I understand why people complain about WashU because it seems to have somehow "gamed" the rankings, but choosing a school purely based on prestige or ranking is dumb anyway. I picked WashU over Duke, supposedly a far more prestigious school, simply because I liked it better. I didn't even apply to any of the Ivy Leagues; I didn't think any of them fit me well. There were many schools ahead of WashU I could have applied to; I didn't. The individual student is being obscured by this foolish quest for some absolute ranking.</p>
<p>I'm not sure how so many people feel they really know enough to "correctly" rank the schools. It's all based on numbers and hearsay. Anyone who chooses a college purely due to its ranking in that year's US News rankings, or it supposed prestige, is a fool.</p>
<p>Stop bashing WashU and start bashing the whole college admissions culture, which seems to obsess over rankings and "prestige".</p>
<p>Amen to that, Achil. I preferred WashU over Stanford, UPenn and Northwestern, which are three schools that people consider to be "better" than WashU. But I thought WashU was a better fit for me, so I came here. After doing a summer program here, I really enjoy it. I don't care whether it's ranked 11th or 1st or 99999th or whatever. I'm here because I felt it fit me better than the other schools I applied to</p>
<p>Well, at least some people don't give a **** about rankings. Does anyone really care about what rank school you went to once you're out in the working world? No. I know plenty of Wash U grads who got into great grad schools and careers, and I also know plenty of grads from other lower-ranked schools who are also doing very well. The company I work for currently has a CEO who went to Towson University, and a VP who graduated Yale (in only 3 years). Is one smarter than the other? Is one doing better for themselves? They're pretty much on equal footing... A family friend went to Wash U's law school and is now a partner in the top litigation firm in NYC, along side lawyers from much better schools. Not much seems to matter once you're out of college.</p>
<p>How about going some place where you think you'll learn and have a good time for 4 years? I could have easily gone to higher ranked schools, but I liked Wash U the best. The only thing the inflated rankings do is attract higher caliber students and professors that will only serve to justify the ranking in the future, anyway.</p>