To those who complain about Tuft's Syndrom

Colleges and Universities A-Z Washington University in St. Louis
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<p>For those who love anecdotal evidence:</p>

<p>I spent 15 minutes on my Washu application, never visited the school nor had interviews with them. Got a fantastic letter saying I was accepted.</p>

<p>Did not put any interest whatsoever, and submitted it raw with my Asian generic grades, and few interesting ECs.</p>

<p>There’s no such thing as “I was overqualified, and thus, I was waitlisted.” - It is simply the cockiest thing one could say to self-replenish their ego.</p>

<p>My example doesn’t mean anything as well, because it’s anecdotal - so stop BSing your way through to get your irrelevantly erroneous facts seem correct.</p>

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<p>100% agree with Huntsmen. This Tufts Syndrom idea is just a way for people to cope with their waitlisted status as they wait for ivy decisions. I don’t think anyone accepted should let it damper the news, they are, after all, the ones with the option of attending. It’s great if you think you’re “overqualified”, but that doesn’t change the fact that you weren’t accepted to this particular school.</p>

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<p>How is this for irrelevant anecdotal evidence: everyone I know who has gone to WUSL has been Jewish. Does that mean anything? No.</p>

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<p>“Your logic is flawed. If Wash U was worried about the impact “over qualified” applicants will have on their yield, they could just reject them instead of wait list them. There would be no difference in their yield.” </p>

<p>Simple. Go back to the analogy of the pretty girl at the dance. What if, by some chance, she has no dance partners? What if you’re the only one left? Then she’ll want you (well, I’d hope so at least :wink: ). The same can be said here—if you’re an amazing candidate wait listed, that means, if you don’t get into any of your other options (Ivy or not Ivy), then you’ll really want to get into WashU by the end of the process. After all, WashU wants these top kids—they just don’t want to get thrown under the bus by them picking HYPS instead of them.</p>

<p>Again, I don’t go to WashU, I don’t have a vendetta against them or anything (one of my close friends got in ED last year and LOVES it there). I’m just saying—Tuft’s Syndrome is real. My guidance counselor has worked for 20 years in the admissions process—and served as a admissions director before that. She told me that Tuft’s Syndrome is real—whether you believe her or not is up to you.</p>

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<p>This trend is real. One piece of anecdotal evidence on one side or the other does not change the logic. The point is that Washington University cares about lowering its acceptance rate and raising its yield in order to climb the US News rankings. So, the University waitlists “overqualified” students who are less likely to attend for some reason, perhaps due to geographic location or interest level.</p>

<p>To repeat what has already been said, having a long waitlist does manipulate the data. Universities don’t have to worry about unfilled slots on May 1 and they avoid increasing the number of acceptance letters.</p>

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<p>It could also mean that some schools within washu are more competitive than others. Artsci I believe has the largest student body and when I applied, everyone I knew spoiled to Artsci. My friend and I applied for engineering and business and we both got in. My friend had a pretty science heavy course load in HS so engineering seemed like a great fit. Everyone else we knew actually visited washu while my friend and I only went to an info session closer to home. They all applied for Artsci. One of them was top of our class bit got wait listed. My friend and I weren’t even in the top 5% and our SATs were below 2200. We all expressed interest but in the end a big difference was thatching schools in washu we applied to. Then again you can easily switch schools within washu so this arguments probably invalid. </p>

<p>Overall academics alone don’t constitute acceptance. Maybe some schools do that but not washu. Theres a wide variety of people here but overall you’ll see there’s a general social trend in the student body and you’ll say “yeah these people fit well in the washu community.” Its not about academics; it’s about finding the people they deem will fit well in the community. Idk how the admissions office does it but they manage to find a lot of fitting people, not to mention from all 50 states and around the world.</p>

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<p>Having a large waitlist in no way “manipulates” data. I worry that those claiming this do not understand what the word “manipulate” means. Manipulate expressly conveys, at minimum, misrepresenting and, at most, falsifying data. Neither is being done here. </p>

<p>1) Even if all the waitlisted applicants had their decision changed to “rejected,” the number of accepted students would stay the same. In a set of all applicants, it is almost irrelevant how the subset of non-acceptees is comprised. It is only relevant how many were accepted and the total number of non-accepted. </p>

<p>2) Neither the number of rejected students nor the number of waitlisted students has any bearing on rankings guides. Neither does yield. The overall acceptance rate plays a small part in the US News rankings formula: it’s less than 2% of the school’s overall ranking. Given that the number of students actually accepted from the waitlist is as low as 0 (and has been 0 in recent years), the number of waitlist-accepted students not only has no discernible impact on a school’s overall acceptance rate but an even LESS discernible impact on a school’s ranking. </p>

<p>3) Further supporting the uselessness of this “yield” percentage that people throw around, Wash U’s is about 33%. It’s been at or around this number for at least the last several years, by doing searches on the Wash U boards here and elsewhere on CC. This is much lower than most similar colleges. Following the logic of arguments in this forum, you’d think that if the masterminds at Wash U were so clever by having this large waitlist, it would work to improve Wash U’s yield in some substantive capacity. And yet, it hasn’t. While I’m sure Wash U works hard to improve overall yield, I highly doubt that employing a large waitlist has any role let alone efficacy in this effort. </p>

<p>4) There is almost no real impact a waitlist has on yield, and expressly NO impact whatsoever the size of the waitlist has on yield. The argument usually goes like this: By accepting someone off the waitlist in May/June, a college is more able to accept those students who will actually attend (because they’ve done the extra effort to remain on the waitlist, likely remain in contact with the admissions officers, etc). So, the yield will almost certainly be higher from waitlisted-accepted students than a normal accepted student. But, given that such a tiny tiny percentage of the entering class is comprised of waitlisted-accepted students, the overall impact this has on total yield is so insignificant is almost doesn’t matter. To the second clause of the first sentence in this paragraph, the SIZE of the waitlist (whether it has 1,000 kids or 2,000 kids or 20,000 kids) is irrelevant for purposes of calculating yield. Yield is #attending/#accepted. The amount attending is always fixed as the freshman class size, and the size of the waitlist has no impact on the overall #accepted. </p>

<p>5) Why doesn’t anyone complain about being waitlisted at Cornell, Brown, Duke, Northwestern, Chicago, Emory… even HYPS? Wash U’s stats are the same, if not better than, all of these colleges. These top schools all attract a similar type of student. Each college accepts a very small percentage, denies a bunch, and waitlists some. Is it just because some of these schools have a more recognizable name that it entitles them to waitlist or deny a student? I really don’t get why so much muck is thrown at Wash U for not accepting every numerically qualified student. You’ve seen the stats of accepted students and the stats of waitlisted students: not only are they comparable, they are really outstanding. Wash U has a fixed class size and an exceedingly large application pool. Unless you want our school to triple in size, I’m sorry but there are going to be a lot of great applications that won’t be accepted. At least you have the option to say you want to continue to be considered for acceptance and have a second shot at being accepted, as opposed to being flat out rejected.</p>

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<p>Also, I’d also like to add – and I’m sure most other Wash U students will share my overall point – that at least the admissions office saw something valuable in your application that didn’t warrant a rejection. Just looking at the posts of waitlisted students in the other thread, you all (well, most :slight_smile: ) had great stats, arguably would have fit in well here, and I’m sure your decision easily could have gone the other way into an acceptance. Hopefully some of you get some good news in May/June, because Wash U really is a great school and I couldn’t imagine myself anywhere else. I mean, you must have seen something appealing in Wash U initially, and Wash U must have seen something appealing in your application. If you really like Wash U, keep in contact, be optimistic, but also be realistic. Personally, I’m glad that you bothered to do at least a modicum of research in our school and liked at least one part of it, and hope that getting waitlisted doesn’t hurt (too much) your view of our school.</p>

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<p>@flashmountain To me, it doesn’t really matter whether or not WashU waitlists people who seem likely to gain admission at other elite colleges who don’t seem to show much interest. It is their school, so it is their right and their right alone to decide how admissions decisions will be made. I don’t believe that any of us have the right to tell them, “No, your criteria are wrong.” Also, I am not saying that it is possible to be “overqualified” for WashU. I think these are the two main differences between me and other people who have problems with WashU’s waitlist.</p>

<p>That being said, I do disagree with you on a couple of points.</p>

<p>In regards to your fourth point, I think that you are misinterpreting what some people are saying. They are not saying that the fact that the waitlist is large changes the yield, they are saying that WashU’s practice of considering demonstrated interest when deciding whether to waitlist or accept a student affects the yield. This is true. If you accept students who have shown that they are actually interested in attending the college and waitlist students who have not shown much interest in the college, you are likely to have a higher yield than if you accepted more of the people who didn’t seem very interested and waitlisted more of the people who seemed very interested. I am not saying that they shouldn’t consider demonstrated interest. I think that it is totally fine that they do. I’m just saying that you probably will have a higher yield if demonstrated interest is one of your criteria.</p>

<p>In regards to your fifth point, here is the distinction I draw between WashU and the other college I have been waitlisted at: it seems that WashU places many more students on the waitlist than they are likely to even consider should more spaces in the incoming class become available. I realize that a college must have a fairly high number of people (say, 1000 people, maybe a little more depending on the size of the freshman class) on their waitlist so that they can be sure that the students who are accepted off the waitlist contribute to a well-rounded class (i.e. if a lot of the anthropology majors declined their offers of admission, many anthropology majors will be pulled off the waitlist.) My problem is that WashU’s waitlist is so large that it seems like many students’ applications won’t even be looked at again if they should need to use the waitlist. To me, being put on the waitlist should mean that you were one of the people who was extremely close to gaining admission, not that you were merely somewhere in the vicinity.</p>

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<p>@hardworking and basilisk use numerical examples to prove your point that wait listing students impacts any of the following - sats of accepted students, yield or % of applicants accepted to total applied. The calculations are in several of the pst above. Unless you disagree with the calculations you are wrong. Wait listed students have NO impact on yield. Wash U could just reject all those students instead Prove your point with an example or move on.</p>

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<p>@onecot59 I think the point is not that having a waitlist in general affects the yield. I think what they are saying is that who you put on the waitlist and who you accept affects the yield.</p>

<p>Here’s a numerical example like you asked for. Let’s say we have a school to which 200 students applied. 100 of the students view that school as their eighth choice, and the other 100 view that school as their first choice. Now consider two scenarios:
a) The 100 who view the school as their eighth choice are admitted, and the 100 who view the school as their first choice are waitlisted.
b) The 100 who view the school as their first choice are admitted, and the 100 who view the school as their eighth choice are waitlisted.</p>

<p>In all likelihood, the second scenario would produce a higher yield. Moral of the story: considering demonstrated interest when making admission decisions tends to increase yield. As I have said before, I’m not saying it is wrong to consider demonstrated interest when making admission decisions. It totally makes sense that a school would show preference to people who have shown preference to the school, and I think it is totally fair for a school to do that. All I’m saying is that it is incorrect to believe that it doesn’t matter who you accept, the yield will remain the same.</p>

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<p>“As I have said before, I’m not saying it is wrong to consider demonstrated interest when making admission decisions. It totally makes sense that a school would show preference to people who have shown preference to the school, and I think it is totally fair for a school to do that. All I’m saying is that it is incorrect to believe that it doesn’t matter who you accept, the yield will remain the same.”</p>

<p>EXACTLY what I mean, too! All applicants are not equal. For some, WashU is their love (like mine is Penn). For others, it is just a “back-up” (ex. If they don’t get into HYPS etc., they’ll go to WashU). The question is, if 100 people are qualified for admission, 50 have it as there #1, and 50 as their #10 (on a list of 10), should WashU only accept those who treat it as it’s #1 (or demonstrate interest)? Or should they admit all 100 because based on their academics/ECs/essays/recs they fit the bill? </p>

<p>Basically, should interest be factored in? Is it fair?</p>

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<p>The argument you are making is that Wash U wait list “over qualified” students to improve their yield. It is a fact they accept very very few of the wait list. So the rebuttal was if they rejected these applicants instead of wait listing them (which is what happens in the end), Wash U would have the same yield. </p>

<p>I think you have now changed your agruement to Wash U accepts students who have Wash U as their first choice. The only way they could try to project that would be demonstrated interest. That is a much different argument. </p>

<p>Many schools place a significant factor on demonstrated interest. There are also plenty of top applicants (by the stats you want to use to measure an applicant) that were accepted to Wash U. If they didn’t accept any applicants from the very top stat category, I could see your point that isn’t the case. Many of the accepted applicants (see RD thread) state that they didn’t show interest. It isn’t all based on statistics. How many applicants ranked #1 in their class and how many applicants with 2300+ get rejected by the Ivies? Plenty.</p>

<p>I am sure Wash U has several goals including a strong diversified incoming class and good stats to promote based on stats for accepted applicants and yield. Not any different than the goals the Ivies have. </p>

<p>I don’t see why applicants that aren’t that interested in Wash U (applying as a safety to the Ivies) get upset when Wash U passes on them. </p>

<p>Good luck where ever you go to college.</p>

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<p>@onecot59 Was your last post directed at me or at hardworking21?</p>

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<p>“I don’t see why applicants that aren’t that interested in Wash U (applying as a safety to the Ivies) get upset when Wash U passes on them.”</p>

<p>I guess it’s because people take admissions decisions emotionally/seriously. After all, you are basically opening up everything you’ve done in your life to these people (at least, for me, I tried to open up my heart and soul in every piece of my application). To an extent, they are judging you (I know everyone says that don’t take it as a judgement on you, yada yada yada, but to me and many others, it is (again, to an extent)). I don’t know about you, but I don’t like feeling rejection. I know I’m not the best, but hey, rejection hurts/stings.</p>

<p>That is why, at least if I was in this situation (want to go to Ivys, WashU as back-up, then rejected), would be upset. After all, it’s suppose to be your back-up! Back to my example of the dance, it’s as if the girl that accepts everyone has now rejected you. Your immediate reaction is most likely, “what? how did this happen?”. The same can be said for these kids who feel that they should’ve been accepted to their safety.</p>

<p>Is it appropriate for WashU to not accept kids who know are using their university as a back-up, not a top choice??</p>

<p>The Ivy League does NOT factor in interest what so ever (minus, MAYBE, being on their mailing list or not). Visits, info sessions, etc. don’t take into account whether or not you get in. Shouldn’t WashU do the same? Shouldn’t it just admit people based on their academics/essays/recs/ECs, and NOT take into account if people put their school as #1 or not?</p>

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<p>I don’t see any reason why a school shouldn’t take demonstrated interest into account. There are plenty of ways outside of a visit, such as applying to scholarships, going to info sessions, etc. I haven’t heard one good argument for why a student’s interest is not an important factor.</p>

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<p>the only girl i know who went to wustl was brilliant, humble, and likeable. she knew what she wanted in life, knew wustl was the place for her, applied ED, and got in.</p>

<p>if she hadn’t gotten in, she would have moved on and succeeded in life anyway. shes going to law school after she graduates in a year.</p>

<p>she wouldn’t have sat around telling everyone she was overqualified, or that wustl had filled their quota from our area already or what have you.</p>

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<p>hardworking, I’d like to know what makes you so confident in the fact that the Ivies DON’T take demonstrated interest into account.</p>

<p>Plus, the entire premise of your argument about people feeling bad when they get rejected from Wash U (their backup school) seems misguided to me. Those people are the ones to blame for believing that Wash U is a backup school. It’s established itself as quite comparable to the Ivies in terms of academics, even if its shortcomings in national reputation/recognition don’t allow people to realize it.</p>

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<p>hardworking21 -
Actually, for the Ivys, interest is a factor. Why do you think applying ED makes such a difference? The fact that a student is committing his or herself to the school is a bonus. </p>

<p>Also, Wash U. should not be a backup school for any student. At this level, a huge factor of luck plays in and nothing is guaranteed, even to the best of us. It would also be a major mistake not to show interest at any school you apply to, even a backup. All I had to do to show interest in Wash U. was to make a phone call, but it was enough. If someone could not show even that level of commitment, it is obvious that they are not right for the school.</p>

<p>And finally, to all the “overqualified” applicants who were waitlisted - come back when you’re into an Ivy. But even then, students are accepted to Harvard and rejected from all other Ivys all the time. Schools simply have different sets of criteria.</p>

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<p>I guarantee there will be students accepted to every school they apply to, except WUSTL, were they will be waitlisted. It happened to my nephew.</p>