Perhaps...Waitlist

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

<p>Everyone noticed WashU waitlists tons of kids, but I feel like everyone is looking at it the wrong way.</p>

<p>I'm willing to bet that WashU adcoms have a specific profile they want for their freshman class. I'm also willing to bet that if 100% of the accepted students matriculate, they'll have that specific profile they want. However, they know that's not going to happen, so they use the waitlist.</p>

<p>If an Asian male for biomedical engineering drops out, they'll find the next best Asian male biomed major and accept them. If the first kid says no, they'll go to the next, etc. I'm sure they use more than three characteristics, but you get the point.</p>

<p>So if you were waitlisted, unfortunately there's someone that beat you out. Yea, you might have higher stats, but that doesn't make you "overqualified." I'm sure the guy or girl that got in had something that made him or her more appealing to WashU.</p>

<p>So, what's wrong with that? They waitlist allows the university to get the profile they want. If you like the school, you like it because of its profile; don't criticize the adcoms for maintaining it.</p>

<p>My 2 cents</p>

2

<p>I'd be surprised if they're organized enough to do that with perfect precision, but you probably are about right on that. I think i'd read somewhere before that they'll try to pull in students off the waitlist who are similar (at least based on their potential majors) to the students who decided not to matriculate. FYI, if you haven't given WashU some idea of what you want to study on the app, you might want to do so. Maybe it doesn't matter though.</p>

3

<p>Probably- if they have an unusually low yield in the art school (for example), I'd be willing to place money that they'd draw from art school applicants first off the waitlist.</p>

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<p>fastpass- I think you're pretty much spot on here.</p>

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<p>waitlist is better than rejected isnt it?</p>

6

<p>You're "closer" to being admitted if you're on the waitlist, yes. From another perspective, it can be nice to be rejected and get to move on with your college decisions.</p>