<p>Great point, completely agree. we moved to TX from the northeast and saw a huge difference in how we perceived the top northeastern schools vs. how our child (born & raised in TX) perceived them. Once he was accepted to the college of engineering at TX A&M he basically stopped trying to get into any schools in the northeast. I had to remind him of the money we spent on SAT Subject Tests and AP Exams so he could apply to some top privates in the northeast. So, after a lot of thinking, the two schools that he thought would be worth attending more than A&M were Harvard & Wharton at U Penn. At that point I realized his perception of reality was completely different than mine.</p>
<p>Wash U has top programs in the sciences, social sciences, languages, social work, etc. Professors who serve on NSF, NDSEG and other panels know Wash U and recognize it. The common person may not, but they don’t know Williams, Swarthmore or Pomona either. It doesn’t matter what they know; what matters is that Wash U provides a top-notch education to very talented students. They have a significant endowment that they use to provide students with great experiences. In short, I would be happy to send my kid there over many better known schools, just as I would be happy to send my kid to Pomona.</p>
<p>Why do they have high SAT scores? The most likely explanation is that Wash U relies on those numbers when they admit. An uncharitable view of this is that they are gaming the system. But for insiders, it’s clear that there’s very little other data to go on. Students have inflated high school grades, many schools no longer give class rank, all recommendations are positive, students may or may not write their own essays…what else can a school use? As schools and teachers give up their right to sort students, more and more schools are relying on the SATs.</p>
<p>BCClintonk how accurate are the score reports for the Midwestern states? I looked up the stats from Oklahoma and it claimed that 9.2% of SAT takers sent their scores to Stanford. For comparison, 40.2% sent them to OU while 29% sent them to Oklahoma State. According to the College Board fewer than 2000 OK (less than the size of my high school) HS students took the SAT in 2013, and I’d assume the number is lower in states that are truly in the Midwest.</p>
<p>While I am and always will be a ‘WashU’ guy, the University itself officially changed its name to WashU St Louis several years ago. (When you have to change your name to avoid confusion…)</p>
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<p>The vast majority of students do not prefer LACS…not too sure why that is hard to understand. Moreover, the Claremont Colleges have to compete with UC on price, and with Stanford, Caltech and USC on prestige.</p>
<p>I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the College Board’s data on the number of students from each state sending SAT score reports, but you need to know what to make of them. Oklahoma is an ACT-dominant state, so most Oklahoma applicants to most colleges and universities will send ACT scores, not SAT scores. But to apply to Harvard or Princeton, an applicant MUST send SAT Subject Test scores. That means the number of Oklahomans applying to Harvard and Princeton is less than or equal to the number sending SAT score reports to those schools (112 and 84, respectively, in 2013). </p>
<p>You can’t make that same assumption for Stanford, which doesn’t require SAT Subject Tests, though they are “recommended” so it’s a good bet most applicants submit them. Stanford also requires applicants to submit all SAT and ACT scores from all test dates; if applicants comply with this, any applicant who took the SAT at any time should show up in the number submitting SAT score reports. Still, there might be some Stanford applicants who never took the SAT Reasoning Test or SAT Subject Tests, and submit only ACT scores. So the number of Oklahomans applying to Stanford could exceed the number sending SAT score reports.</p>
<p>When it comes to schools like OU and OSU, most Oklahomans probably just send ACT scores, so the number sending SAT score reports doesn’t tell you much. Well, you can reasonably infer from these figures (535 sending SAT score reports to Oklahoma and 362 sending SAT score reports to Oklahoma State) that far more Oklahomans apply to OU and OSU than to Harvard, but that’s no surprise. Taken alone, the SAT score report figures would represent a fraction of the number of Oklahomans applying to the local schools.</p>
<p>The ACT doesn’t provide comparable figures, but it does tell us that in 2013, 7,808 Oklahomans sent ACT score reports to Oklahoma State at the time of testing, and 7,648 sent ACT score reports to Oklahoma at the time of testing. These figures probably understate the total number sending ACT scores to these schools, because some test-takers don’t send scores until they’ve gotten back the results. FWIW, 3,232 indicated OU was their first choice at the time of testing, and 3,061 indicated OSU was their first choice at the time of testing.</p>
<p>Generally speaking, in ACT-dominant states only a relative handful of students take the SAT and/or SAT Subject Tests, and they tend to be those who intend to apply to elite private colleges. Some of these require (e.g., Harvard, Princeton) or recommend (e.g., Stanford) SAT Subject Tests, even for applicants submitting the ACT with Writing. Other elite colleges may not require SAT Subject Tests, but in a highly competitive admissions environment, applicants want to submit the strongest possible credentials, and many will take both the SAT and ACT seeking their highest scores. Consequently, those taking the SAT in ACT-dominant states tend not to be representative, instead skewing higher in academic achievement than the larger number taking the ACT. But this is going to be just as true in Iowa or Minnesota as in Oklahoma.</p>
<p>Nice find, that is one elusive document! The list of the non-releasers becomes smaller and smaller.</p>
<p>For some reason, I do not think that the OP expected such a spirited discussion! :)</p>
<p>PS Regarding the students making WUSTL/Washu their first choice, it is interesting to see that the number of ED applications is well below 2,000.</p>
<p>^ Yeah, In order to find the link (in post#57) I had to go to the WUSTL website, then search for the Common Data Set. It showed up as a PDF listed as “Common Data Elements”.</p>
<p>Again, the number of ED applicants has to be seen in the context of this thread. At one point in time, we discussed about HYPS and the USNews rankings. It is in this context that one might find useful to compare the number of early applications. So, it isn’t really about noting how many students apply to Rice or Vandy, but looking at HYPS and, perhaps, Penn, Northwestern, and Chicago – although the later is a different animal as it offers a non-restrictive EA application. </p>
<p>Fwiw, there were close to 30,000 early applications at the combines Ivies, and close to 13,000 at Stanford + MIT. </p>
<p>Early applications tend to offer a reasonable proxy for what is considered a student’s … first choice.</p>
<p>Yes, understood. The point I was making was that for some other western/midwestern states (CO, MN, WA), even a tiny in-state LAC gets more SAT reports than many/most T20 national universities located in distant states. Most students (presumably even most top students) prefer to attend college fairly close to home. So I would expect that for many midwesterners at WashU, Chicago, NU, etc., these were their first-choice schools.</p>
<p>Why is everyne so obssessed with knocking down WUSTL? There have not been any allegations of data manipulations at WUSTL along the lines of GW or Claremont-McKenna. Does it realy matter if WUSTL is #14 or just top 20–especially for undergrad where fit is as important as ranking?</p>
<p>Yes and no. A binding ED application can be taken as an indication that the ED school is the applicant’s first choice, because in effect the applicant is saying she is ready to forsake all others if admitted. But a non-binding EA application isn’t the same thing. My D2 applied EA to a school that was probably at the time 7th on her list of 9 schools. Why? Well, she thought an early acceptance from school #7 would allow her to knock schools #8 and #9 off her list, which is indeed what happened. Other students apply EA believing it may improve their chances of admission and because they’d like to have that decision in hand early in the process, but even if admitted plan to shop around for the best FA offer; or they may remain undecided for other reasons. So I think it’s a mistake to take non-binding EA applications as proxies for “first choice.”</p>
<p>I also think it’s a mistake to read too much into the number of ED applications. Lots of applicants have a clear first choice at application time but are reluctant to apply ED because they’re uncertain about FA. Wealthier applicants who know they’ll be full-pays don’t have those kinds of concerns. In general, then, the wealthier the applicant pool, the less FA concerns will dampen the ED pool. </p>
<p>I think some schools may be cynical enough to exploit this to their financial advantage, taking a larger percentage of their entering class from the ED pool, knowing it skews the entering class wealthier. This, in turn, is likely to increase the number of ED applicants, as prospective applicants see that their chances of admission appear to be higher in the ED round. Also, some schools have let it be known that they’ll only consider certain factors, like legacy, in the ED round. It’s hard to say that the increased numbers who apply ED under such circumstances aren’t ultimately making the ED school their first choice, but to some extent that’s manufactured by the school’s admissions policies.</p>
<p>Comparing WUSTL to the “Ivies” is far too general. HYPSM are ultra selective and prestigious for good reason. Columbia is a great city school (some like the city, some don’t).</p>
<p>After personally attending a “lesser Ivy” and visiting Dartmouth and Cornell with my D recently, as well as WUSTL, I can tell you that most people who visit would choose WUSTL over the “lesser Ivies” in a heartbeat. The MERIT AID, undergraduate student satisfaction, and facilities are simply better at WUSTL than those at lesser Ivies. </p>
<p>WUSTL undergraduate students are genuinely happy with their school, the gorgeous condo-like dorms and park-like setting, their bright peers and dedicated faculty, and the merit aid.</p>
<p>WUSTL is very impressive, and left me wondering why it was necessary to struggle in classes of over a thousand, never speaking directly to a professor, and living in cinder block dorm barracks in order to get a good education at the lesser Ivy I attended.</p>
It’s not an apples to apples comparison for a variety of reasons including WUSTL using binding ED (HYPSM are not binding), different freshman class sizes, and different numbers of applicants overall. If you compare % of applicants who apply early at colleges with a binding ED, then WUSTL falls towards he middle of the ivies, as listed below. The numbers below are for the class of 2017, which had a different number of ED apps from the 2009 data listed a few posts up.</p>
<p>ED Rates
Penn – 15% of apps applied ED
Brown – 10% of apps applied ED
Cornell – 10% of apps applied ED
WUSTL – 10% of apps applied ED
Columbia – 9% of apps applied ED
Dartmouth – 7% of apps applied ED</p>
<p>SCEA Rates
Yale – 15% of apps applied SCEA
Harvard – 14% of apps applied SCEA
Princeton – 14% of apps applied SCEA</p>
<p>Clinton, I do not think that the above is contradicting what I wrote, namely “Early applications tend to offer a reasonable proxy for what is considered a student’s … first choice.”</p>
<p>Please note that I use the terms “early applications” and “reasonable proxy.” Obviously, the first term is a comprehensive term for ED, SCEA/REA, EA, and also athletic “early” applications. I fully understand the nature of non binding or non restrictice EA, but also believe that the at the most selective schools that offer SCEA, there is little difference with ED in terms of … first choice. </p>
<p>And, for the proxy part, if the early applications are NOT a reasonable proxy for the said first choice, I would like to know what a better proxy might be … at the schools that offer early admissions. Obviously, there are a number of schools that only have regular admissions, and plenty of applicants that do not consider other choices. The public systems in California or Texas fit in that category.</p>
<p>On a final note, it might also be interesting to compare the percentage of the entering classes that came from the early pool, as some Ivies are close to 50 percent.</p>
<p>3,010 early apps * 18.54% early accept rate + 25,909 * 8.06% regular acceptance rate = 2,649 acceptances with 3010 + 25,909 = 28,919 overall apps . 3,010/28,919 matches the Brown data you listed exactly.</p>
<p>However, for WUSTL it doesn’t match. Instead it solves as
3,055 early apps * 26.60% early accept rate + 27,062 * 13.70% regular acceptance rate = 4,520 acceptances with 3,055 + 27,062 = 30,117 overall apps.</p>