<p>Acceptances to top universities are random, incredibly competitive, and most importantly undefinable. Washu is one of the best colleges in the country and people are claiming they are overqualified? Whether you have a 2400, 5.0, and invented a cure, there is no way to say that you are overqualified when discussing top schools. Each of these great schools have elite student bodies, getting waitlisted or rejected by one is not because you were overqualified. Colleges such as Washu get plenty of applicants with perfect grades and scores, however that is not the deciding factor in their decisions. Nobody can be said to be overqualified for a university like this, they will select whoever they feel is best for this school. Unfortunately, that will result in most people not getting in, all due to various reasons, none of which involve a candidate considered to be overqualified</p>
<p>OK, first of all, do you even understand the sole purpose of likely letters? They’re not just “early acceptances.” They are designed to “recruit” applicants that they think will get accepted EVERYWHERE. Harvard’s dean said so explicitly. They’re trying to say “hey, we know you’re going to have tons of schools begging you to come, but please, pretty please consider us!” HYPS and other Ivies send about 100-200 of these out of their entire applicant pool of 25,000+ kids. </p>
<p>iissmrt got three of these likelies, as well as an acceptance to one of the top 3 liberal arts schools in the country.</p>
<p>He/she is overqualified for WashU. End of discussion.</p>
<p>Fine, hookem. You are overqualified for WashU. Congratulations on your admittance to HYPSM. Perhaps, though, you should leave the WashU board for those who will possibly be attending after they are rejected from all the other schools for which they are underqualified.</p>
<p>NOT ME. Geez, you people need to work on your critical reading skills for god’s sake.</p>
<p>I was referring to another poster who also got WLed.</p>
<p>waitlisted people: maybe the adcoms predicted that you will get into HYPS, and most people wouldnt turn down these colleges for washu. If this is true, dont be discouraged, it could be a good sign! I mean this prob isnt the case for all waitlistees, but ot cpuld be for those of you with obviously spectacular stats</p>
<p>And good luck, in 13 or so days you might be in at HYPS and could care less abt washu(from someone who didnt apply to washu, but is amused with this board!)</p>
<p>Acceptance to ivies by likely letters or not in no way means that someone is overqualified for Washu, for Cornell, for Duke, for University of Chicago, for Northwestern. You clearly are ignorant to the college system. Washu is a TOP university, you cannot be overqualified for such a school. I got a likely letter to yale and dartmouth, and just got into MIT, does that mean I am overqualified for Washu? Absolutely not. Not one score, gpa, or achievement makes someone overqualified for such a great school.</p>
<p>Again, hookem is right in the very limited context that WashU will waitlist (most likely) or reject (not so likely) those top 1-2% type students they think are least likely to accept their offer precisely because they will get in and choose HYPSM…In that very narrow definition of overqualified (probably not the best word, obviously), they are. Probably better to say “otherwise qualified”, meaning just what I said above. They all play the stats game, believe it. You guys are just arguing definitions. Define what you think overqualified means, or how it applies to this situation, then you might find you agree.</p>
<p>I realize that you weren’t referring to yourself in that particular post. Judging by the amount of time you have spent expressing your opinions on the waitlisted students, however, it would seem as though you consider yourself to be one of the “overqualified” applicants (otherwise, why would you so persistently laud these applicants?).</p>
<p>Thank you, fallenchemist, that’s all I’ve been trying to prove, but no one seems to believe the simple fact that WashU is trying to manipulate their yield by waitlisting people that are overqualified. I would put that number closer to 3%, though.</p>
<p>I believe Washu waitlists the amount of people they do not because they feel those students are overqualified, but because those students are probably the ones who have expressed the least amount of interest in Washu. They see many students with a perfect transcript and scores, the ones who haven’t done anything to show interest will be waitlisted.</p>
<p>hookem - lol, OK 3%. But yield is not actually the right term, it is acceptance rate. Yield is how many of those they accept actually enroll, which at Wash U was 31% last year, I think. USNWR does not use yield, but does use percent of applications accepted. For Wash U I think that will be about 20% this year, maybe less. Pretty tough.</p>
<p>WUSTL13 - that supports what I am saying</p>
<p>“Acceptances to top universities are random, incredibly competitive…”</p>
<p>Acceptance at top universities are everything but random. </p>
<p>I believe before administrators even look at grade, essay, leadership, etc…, they look at the gender of the applicant (most schools are all very close to the 50/50 ratio females/males), then the geographic location of the applicant (I don’t believe a school would want 90 percent of their student body from only one state), hence seeking diversity. Then, the racial component enter the equation, seeking even more diversity.</p>
<p>When this compilation is done, then they look at grades, rank, and tests. Interest and intented major play an important role in the decision, I am sure (again, a college cannot have 90 percent of their student wanting to study political sciences). In order to create even more diversity on campus, they also must accept students with different academic aptitudes (again, a college campus cannot be filled with validvictorians). That is why some student are accept to top universities with lower GPA and such. The admission process is extremely well thought, leaving very little place to chance. By doing so, top universities control the environment.</p>
<p>Accepted. The only explanation I can think of is that I didn’t apply for aid.</p>
<p>ACT: 34
GPA: 4.3</p>
<p>A lot of leadership, ECs, and a few honors, but no more than some of the waitlisted kids who posted earlier.</p>
<p>chsdespot - presumably, and I strongly believe this is true, the admissions process is need blind at Wash U. So your lack of need for aid should have had nothing to do with it. You just had the right mix of stats and desire, presumably.</p>
<p>Eucalyptus - I totally echo your comment. As the NYT article pointed out (and I stated numerous times earlier), these admissions departments actually have fairly sophisticated modeling to try and get the classes they desire while keeping their stats looking good. However, that model is based on the prior national economy when college funds were worth twice as much, loans were easier to get, and parents were not as worried about losing their jobs, if they haven’t already. Not to mention the student possibly thinking that it might not be so easy to pay off that $100,000 in debt by going to Wall Street or whatever when they graduate, as they might have in the past. This could be a perturbation to the model that makes it less predictive than in past years. I suspect Wash U will be affected less than private schools that are the next tiers down, but still…</p>
<p>fallenchemist - You are right about the money, but I believe WASHU will continue to give out scholarships to good fit students. I was reading in their school newspaper that they already cut on some aspect. The example that comes to my mind is the cut back of the frequency the bus will drive students from campus to town. So from year to year they will have to adjust their selection to what they can offer. My daughter was waitlisted. She is a stellar student, etc…, but I knew she was not a good fit for the school, and I am very thankful that the committee saw it as well.</p>
<p>fallenchemist,
Wash.U. does not even claim to be need blind. See their website. Search “need blind” or “need-blind”. They proudly proclaim they are need aware. Same deal for Hopkins. All other top 25 national research universities at least pay lip service to being need blind for admissions.</p>
<p>BigG - you are absolutely correct. Thank you for correcting my error. Perhaps a bit surprising, given the size of their endowment even with this crash. And clearly the policy preceded the crash. Makes me curious how much the ability to pay goes into it.</p>
<p>Also interesting, they say that about 200 are given some degree of merit aid, regardless of need. Presumably only a small percentage of those (20% tops? I really don’t know) are full tuition or more, so for most kids, the cost of a Wash U education may still be prohibitive or lead to loads of debt. Again, given the size of their endowment compared to a number of other schools that are more generous with merit aid, it seems a bit off from the norm. But I emphasize I am speaking mostly from anecdotal and observational information. It is not something I have studied in detail.</p>
<p>You maybe right eucalyptus2 that the process is not random for the school, but it certainly is random for the student! Why should I be accepted at Caltech, but not MIT, two supposedly similar schools, and then acccepted with a likely to Columbia, but rejected to Stanford? And then waitlisted by Wash U. I do not see how I can predict any decisions to any other schools I applied to!</p>
<p>By the way I want to congratulate everybody who got in! This is awesome and nothing should take away from your celebration. Waitlisted people still have a chance if they care enough to show interest and send more documentation. I won’t, so there will be one more spot for you guys. Since I applied without knowing anything from the school, I read a lot of things that said that people are pretty happy there. But you know what? the process is RANDOM, so in reality we should not hanging our self-esteem on either acceptance or rejection. But like you, why not, I’ll take advantage of an acceptance to feel great, and I’ll try not to let rejection make me feel less of a person. Ahah ;)</p>
<p>Olive - not to belabor the point, but what you are saying supports that it is NOT random. If you had visited and shown more interest, this absolutely goes into their models, along with all the other factors mentioned and undoubtedly some we don’t know about. And all the guides and advice say that showing strong interest increases the odds of acceptance.</p>
<p>I see your perspective and point, though. Unless you as a student can find out what their statistical model is, it is pretty much random to you. Fair enough.</p>