Previous Years Waitlists

Colleges and Universities A-Z Washington University in St. Louis
61

<p>May not be proof beyond reasonable doubt but you can be the judge.</p>

<p><a href="http://apps.amityregion5.org/colleges/CollegeApp%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://apps.amityregion5.org/colleges/CollegeApp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Between 2002 and 2005,
15 applied to WashU
2 were accepted
12 were waitlisted (2 of them were eventually accepted)
1 were rejected
In the end,
out of the 4 admits, 1 went </p>

<p>In 2005, WashU waitlisted the valedictorian.<br>
3.94 GPA, 800 M, 800 V, 800 WR, 800 Chem
The decisions for all schools he/she applied to are as follows:
Columbia University - accepted
Cornell University -accepted
Dartmouth College -accepted
Duke University - accepted
Emory University - accepted
Harvard College - waitlisted
Johns Hopkins University - accepted
Massachusetts Institute of Technology - rejected
New York University - accepted
Princeton University - accepted
Stanford University - accepted
Washington University -St. Louis, MO - waitlisted
Yale University - accepted</p>

<p>Now look at the ones WashU accepted and their list of decisions:
1. 3.6 GPA, 750 M, 690 V, 640 WR, 770 2C, 730 1C
Columbia University - rejected
Dartmouth College - rejected
Johns Hopkins University - rejected
Northwestern University - rejected
University of Connecticut -rejected
Washington University -St. Louis, MO - accepted and went
Yale University - rejected</p>

<ol>
<li><p>3.72 GPA, 680 M, 620 V (710 M, 600V (retake))
Drexel University - rejected
Emory University - accepted and went
Tufts University - rejected
University of Massachusetts-Amherst - accepted
University of Wisconsin - Madison - accepted
Vanderbilt University - accepted
Washington University -St. Louis, MO - waitlisted (accepted)</p></li>
<li><p>3.34 GPA, 650 M, 610 V (700 M, 620 V (retake))
LaSalle University - accepted
University of Connecticut -accepted
University of Maryland-College Park waitlisted (accepted)
University of North Carolina - Charlotte - rejected
University of Pittsburgh - accepted and went
Washington University -St. Louis, MO - waitlisted (accepted)</p></li>
<li><p>3.628 GPA, 640 M, 690 V, 670/640 (SAT IIs)
New York University - accepted and went
Tulane University - accepted
University of Connecticut - accepted
Washington University -St. Louis, MO - accepted</p></li>
</ol>

<p>So out of these 5 students, WashU waitlisted a Stanford/Yale/Princeton admit but accepted the other four that appear to be no Ivy-caliber. :) </p>

<p>Note the high % of applicants that were waitlisted--80%!</p>

62

<p>By the way, I don't see any sign in the Amity data that Tufts University actually practices Tufts Syndrome.</p>

63

<p>5 people is not a statistical sample.</p>

<p>where are those numbers even from? student-submitted?</p>

<p>even if you are right, you have to prove that WU's US news ranking should be lower than it is. let's say WU's acceptance rate should be 30%, not 22%. WU still ranks ahead of Cornell (#13) in faculty resources (by an astounding 20 slots), class size (again by a large amount), student/faculty ratio, SAT percentiles (by 60 points), freshmen in top 10% of class (by 8%), financial resources (by 14 slots), and alumni giving. About the only place Cornell would beat WU, even with the changed acceptance rate, is in the "peer assessment" by 0.5 points.</p>

<p>the bottom line? at most we are arguing over 2-3 slots in US news here.</p>

<p>I am currently at sea so my response may be DELAYED.</p>

<p>-Mario Vaz</p>

<hr>

<p>DO YOU WANT TO TRY IT!????????</p>

64

<p>I never said anything about WashU being over-ranked or underranked. Few people here were suspecting Tufts Syndrome. I just went out of my way to find a larger set of real data and see if they would shed any light on the "mystery". I never said the data I found conclusively proved anything (I wrote "strong sign"); it's up to other readers to decide. Of course a larger set of data would give something more conclusive.</p>

65

<p>That's hardly a large data set . It is a record of one school.
The CC board essentially has a larger data set. You can collect them and compare the statistics of those admitted with that of those wait-listed. But this again is not scientific. The published average for the enrolled students seems to suggest that WashU is on par with the middle or lower ivies. So what's the point?</p>

66

<p>Well, that WashU has been secretive about its admission data doesn't help to stop people wondering. I went to its website and I don't see any breakdown like the ones shown on Cornell, Northwestern, Brown, Duke websites. If you play the game right, Tufts Syndrome doesn't necessarily translate to lower average SAT than lower Ivies. Lower Ivies lose cross-admits to HYPS all the time too whether they have Tufts Syndrome or not. WashU also has large number of EDs and meaty scholarships to keep its stats in good shape. </p>

<p>"Compare the statistics of those admitted with that of those wait-listed" is not enough because admission is much more than just scores. One would also want to have the list of decisions from other schools. In this small sample, there's no doubt in my mind the valedictorian is a better student than all the ones WashU accepted; that's not just reflected in his/her much superior stats; the decisions from other schools also reflect that. Note 3 out of 4 WashU admits didn't even bother to apply to any of the Ivies; either they didn't care for the Ivies or the Ivies were too much of a reach. Their stats seem to suggest the latter. Then you have the one that applied to Ivies got rejected by everyone--an exact opposite of the valedictorian. I don't deny that's a small sample but still, the "inconsistency" is just too striking to ignore.</p>

67

<p>What is your point? </p>

<p>I've tried to show WU is a great school and that "yield protection" is essentially useless in US news rankings.</p>

<p>So what are you trying to say?!?</p>

<ul>
<li>Mario "Rebel without a challenger" Vaz</li>
</ul>

<hr>

<p>WHO HERE WANTS TO TRY IT!?!!??!</p>

68

<p>My point has been very clear. Are you asking simply because you don't like it when people question about its unusually long waitlist and suspect that WashU may have Tufts Syndrome?</p>

<p>I don't really care how WashU stands in the ranking. You said yield got nothing to do with ranking so I pointed out yield is interrelated to admit rate which US News does consider. But I never think about "if WashU's admit rate is such and such, then it's ranking would be blah blah...". I think you may be a little insecure about its ranking and read too much into what I tried to say. Tufts Syndrome is an admission practice and got nothing to do with quality of education. I am not bashing its ranking. So relax.</p>

69

<p>
[quote]

I don't really care how WashU stands in the ranking. You said yield got nothing to do with ranking so I pointed out yield is interrelated to admit rate which US News does consider."

[/quote]
</p>

<p>admit rate = 1.2 / 100 of the final score ; it is essentially not considered. the impact of this observation is that WashU would have no reason to reject any more than a handful of "super-qualified" candidates.</p>

<p>you are arguing that it does reject qualified candidates but you can't explain why.</p>

<ul>
<li>Mario Vaz</li>
</ul>

<hr>

<p>WHO HERE WANTS TO TRY IT!?!!??!</p>

70

<p>
[quote]
admit rate = 1.2 / 100 of the final score ; it is essentially not considered. the impact of this observation is that WashU would have no reason to reject any more than a handful of "super-qualified" candidates.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You know what? I don't really know how much it weights. I just know it's one of the factors. Thanks for sharing.</p>

<p>How do you know US News ranking is the <em>only</em> driving force behind their admission practice? Maybe it got nothing to do with US News ranking. Maybe they just don't want to "waste" spots on the overqualified ones and give them to those that they think are more likely to pick WashU. That's possible, right? How about this: even though it doesn't weight much on US News ranking anymore, just having a low admission rate is good for marketing purpose anyway? It makes the school looks better and more appealing? You just cant' say for sure.</p>

<p><a href="http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/papers/1287.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/papers/1287.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>
[quote]
...it is easy to manipulate the matriculation rate and the admission rate, which are common measures of preference that receive substantial weight in highly publicized college rating systems. If our ranking were used in place of these measures, the pressure on colleges to practice strategic admissions would be relieved

[/quote]
</p>

<p>The paper was written in 2004 when yield was still considered a factor (if I am not mistaken). In any case, the authors pointed out matriculation and admission rate could be manipulated easily. Note that WashU is ranked 62nd in this revealed preference ranking; that means if the model is reasonably accurate, WashU has a very good reason not only to practice strategic admission but to do it to a fairly large extent to avoid sharing too many cross-admits with HYPSM, Duke, Ivies...etc. Otherwise, they would lose the battle pretty bad and the yield (hence percieved desirability) would be too low and not pretty.</p>

<p>Anyway, let me make it clear that this has nothing to do with educational quality, which, from what I gather, seems to be high at WashU.</p>

71

<p>The problem here, you guys, for all of you giving a bad rap to WashU for not accepting 'better' students, is that you're thinking in a straight line and assuming better students MUST be accepted. WashU is a great school that happens to be just below the Ivies in caliber. Unfortunately, when you're in that no-man's-land, you get an overwhelming amount of safety applications from very well qualified students. It's not fair to accuse WashU of being manipulative when they're just trying to accept the kids who want to go. The extensive use of waitlisting is just to give the kids who really do want to go to WashU, and who really are great candidates a chance to go if they really care and aren't using it as a safety.</p>

<p>Don't be bitter just because you were accepted at freaking Princeton or something, but waitlisted at WashU. I'm sure you'll get over it.</p>

72

<p>Waitlisted and totally fine with it. I applied before I visited, and realized afterwards that it isn't where I wanted to go. My sis applied ED and got in, and I am very happy for her. Those of you who got waitlisted and wanted to go there, don't be too hard on yourselves. They had a huge applicant pool this yr.-over 20,000 students.</p>

73

<p>I have a question. I tried to go to the website <a href="http://www.admissionswaitlist.wustl.edu%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.admissionswaitlist.wustl.edu&lt;/a> to accept being put on the waitlist (as letter said to do), but it goes nowhere. I can't get to the website. Anyone else have that problem?</p>

74

<p>wantthistobeover: That's because the link is actually <a href="http://admissionswaitlist.wustl.edu/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://admissionswaitlist.wustl.edu/&lt;/a> , without the 'www'.</p>

75

<p>thank you very much</p>

76

<p>ok, so does washu even reject anyone??? why can't they just accept their most qualified applicants, reject their least, and waitlist a small amount of the rest? wouldn't that make sense, instead of waitlisting everyone in their mother!</p>

77

<p>They do reject some; this has been discussed. They waitlist so many people because they are apprehensive due to their low yield. Also, this process allows those most interested in the school to show this interest, and interest is very important to WashU</p>

78

<p>i was also waitlisted, but 2 people in my class got in with similar stats...but one had shown a lot of interest</p>

79

<p>does this mean an acceptance to WashU means you won't get into the elite schools?</p>

80

<p>Good to know that the Wash U response won't necessarily reflect the next few days of responses. I didn't visit or show any interest because I'll admit it was my safety, that apparently wasn't so safe! Here's to hoping Emory doesn't pull this...</p>

<p>SAT I: 2150
ACT: 34
SAT II: 750, 700, 650 (Math II, Chinese, US History)
GPA: 3.8 UW (all honors and aps but school doesn't weight)
APS: Macroecon-5, Microecon-5, US History-4// Euro, Calc BC, English Lit
ECS: 12 varsity letters (state and national champs), university research internship, job, several clubs w/ leadership, 2 month imersion in China
Private School-top in area, White Female</p>