US News ranking of Washington U. at St. Louis

<p>Next up, how many apps could a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck gave a crap about application/applicant minutiae. Most pointless thread in years which is saying something.</p>

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<p>Apparently you didn’t see, or must not remember, this thread (starting with bclintonk’s post #172)</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1489940-nu-vs-michigan-9.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1489940-nu-vs-michigan-9.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I guess I chose to ignore that one. But reading it now–at least it went well beyond micro admissions analysis and into faculty quality, student outcomes, and the relative merits of Evanston v AA. Mega interesting compared to this crap. Having lived there 5 years I would say Evanston is not a sleepy suburb. It’s awesome and NU was one plus factor in that. But AA is a top college town. So…</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>That’s only relevant if the only way one can make decisions is by looking at what other people do. Personally, I think finding a place where you can ED where not a lot of people want to ED is called a win - less competition. But, I forgot, we are on CC, where the ultimate criteria for supposedly smart people is – what do other people do?</p>

<p>PG, is there any difference between 1 and 2. </p>

<ol>
<li><p>Personally, I think finding a place where you can ED where not a lot of people want to ED is called a win - less competition. </p></li>
<li><p>But, I forgot, we are on CC, where the ultimate criteria for supposedly smart people is – what do other people do?</p></li>
</ol>

<p>If you do not ascertain “what other people” do, how do you find out the places where a lot of people do not apply ED? </p>

<p>Despite the hollow critics expressed in recent posts, it remains that analyzing the patterns of applications versus admissions is one incredibly important facet of the entire process. As Dubya might have said, strategerizing is not a waste of time. </p>

<p>For instance, does it not pay dividends to not only identify correctly the schools that will compose a sensible list of reaches, matches, and likely schools, but also identify pockets of “increased” statistical chances. As you and I know, there are schools that amply reward the early decision adopters – and the margin is not trivial. When a school admits 2/3 of its applicants in the early round, the early bird gets the … worm!</p>

<p>Of course, as the example of Chicago shows, schools do not always remain unpopular for long, especially as their rankings in the USnews jumps up. Applicants DO respond to the perceived lag in admission rates, and the admission “bonus” dissipates.</p>

<p>What I meant to say - and wasn’t very clear – I can see finding out where other people apply ED (or apply at all) in order to strategize for one’s own self. What I can’t see is using where other people ED as an indication of whether I, myself, am interested in ED’ing at a given place. </p>

<p>I really have no idea where the # of ED-ers to WashU stacks up relative to similar size / competitive caliber colleges, nor do I particularly care. But it was being presented as sort of a watchout, in the sense of … ooh, if a lot of people don’t apply ED to WashU, it must not be a very well-liked or desirable school. And see, I think of desirability as something through my OWN eyes, not through what other people do or don’t do. </p>

<p>There seems to be a real need to paint WashU as this also-ran, sloppy-seconds, you-don’t-go-there-unless-you-got-rejected-by-the-REAL-school-you-wanted-to-get-into. In that typical East Coast provincial (and I know you’re not east coast, xiggi) of assuming that EVERYONE wants to go to the Ivies, they are always at the top of everyone’s list, and anything below that is always the “sigh, gotta settle for.” It’s this complete lack of comprehension that the “preferred lists” are different in different regions of the country, the “distance” between the Ivies and other schools differs in different parts of the country, not all Ivies are created equal, and Ivy-uber-alles is an East Coast phenomenon. Which is not a dig at the Ivies at all! It’s a dig at provincialism.</p>

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<p>Absolutely. I make no bones about the fact that my kids took advantage of the ability to go ED. But their choices weren’t predicated upon “what other people like” or the perceived popularity of those schools among their peers. Their choices were predicated upon what THEY liked. In the case of the OP, they like WashU. So what’s the issue here?</p>

<p>The issue here is the question of what WashU’s TRUE student body quality is. I think that’s a very valid concern given many college applicants look for peers that are similar academically to them. If you were looking at pure student body quality, then some school’s USNWR rank just don’t match their student body quality (i.e Reed College, Harvey Mudd)</p>

<p>WashU’s lack of transparency in their score reports makes the question even more difficult to answer.</p>

<p>Well, if we’re going to “rank” schools by number of Early Applications, don’t we need to consider that the University of Virginia got nearly 14,000 EA applications this year? And although Michigan doesn’t publish its EA statistics separately, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re getting somewhere in the range of 20,000 EA apps, given their roughly 47,000 freshman applications this year.</p>

<p>Or do we not want to go there because it steps on the narrative of Harvard being the “first choice” of the most students with its 4,856 EA applications?</p>

<p>[Notes</a> from Peabody: The UVA Application Process: Early Action Admission Statistics](<a href=“http://uvaapplication.blogspot.com/2013/01/early-action-admission-statistics.html]Notes”>Notes from Peabody: The UVA Application Process: Early Action Admission Statistics)</p>

<p>[46,730</a> applications: University of Michigan expects roughly 6,000 freshmen to enroll in the fall](<a href=“http://www.annarbor.com/news/46700-applications-university-of-michigan-expects-roughly-6000-freshmen-to-enroll-in-the-fall/]46,730”>46,730 applications: University of Michigan expects roughly 6,000 freshmen to enroll in the fall)</p>

<p>“The issue here is the question of what WashU’s TRUE student body quality is. I think that’s a very valid concern given many college applicants look for peers that are similar academically to them. If you were looking at pure student body quality, then some school’s USNWR rank just don’t match their student body quality (i.e Reed College, Harvey Mudd)”</p>

<p>Oh please. The differences are negligible as any educational expert would tell you. The actual educational impact even smaller. RIDICULOUS inherent assumptions there. Tests and grades are very rough indicators of actual academic ability and future success. At those fine levels of differences they are immaterial. Other variables from family income to birth order would probably be more significant.</p>

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<p>Please. Does anyone know any student at WashU that they would describe as anything less than “extremely smart” and not a highly qualified prospect for any top university? WashU is a fantastic university, with strong programs, excellent faculty, and great outcomes for students. It’s also on a beautiful campus in a great part of a very livable city.</p>

<p>ETA: Cross-posted with barrons…right down to the incredulous “please.” :)</p>

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<p>What is it, again, that shows a lack of transparency? </p>

<p>Because their CDS is hard to find?
Because their scores are higher than any midwestern university scores have a right to be?
Because they advertise a lot?</p>

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<p>To be clear and “explain” my posts and positions, I make a difference between discussing the school and the education provided and discussing how it’s viewed by the applicants that I know from my neck of the woods and how the rankings work. I was answering the OP query and suggested the existence of some parallels with Chicago (in terms of response to the USNews “machine.” </p>

<p>In a way, I think that we could have slotted a number of schools in the same discussion. We could talked about Northwestern, Rice, Emory, Notre Dame, Vandy, as well as Duke. And, let’s face it, for the right or wrong reasons, applicants to selective schools ARE focusing (and sometimes obsessively) on the Ivy League plus perhaps Stanford, Caltech, MIT, and more recently Chicago. And, again in my neck of the woods, the applicants are indeed considering a number of schools listed in the USNews “top 20” as … second choice if they do not get a nod from the Ivies. The notable exception might be Notre Dame because a number of staunch Catholics consider Notre Dame to be the nec plus ultra. </p>

<p>Fwiw, discussing the above does NOT mean that one is “endorsing” such instances. On a personal note, as my posts dating back to 2003 and 2004 might have indicated, I never considered applying to ANY of the Ivy League schools. Obnoxious as it might sound, they could not have paid me enough to spend four years on the East Coast. After all, there are limits to the Ivy Mystique! My short list of applications (five) only included schools in Texas, Arizona, and California and was 60 percent public universities. Go figure! :)</p>

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<p>Of course, the “ranking” should be comprehensive and inclusive of all schools. What do the massive number of “early” applications at UT at Austin or Texas A$M tell you? The keen interest of many Texans in attending THEIR first choice. Why would it be different in Virginia, Michigan, and a few more states that happen to have a very competitive local university. Or even a not so competitive school for that matter. </p>

<p>Fwiw, it is important to keep the correct context of certain discussions. When one compares WUSTL to the schools ranked above it, checking the early admissions is relevant. And I think that such was the context of bringing in the EA/ED applications. </p>

<p>Context is everything.</p>

<p>Xiggi,</p>

<p>Still curious to hear your views re my post #47 about admissions, marketing, and a school’s need for a moral compass.</p>

<p>Cue, I am not sure what you expect me to say about the moral compass, except to repeat what I have stated ad nauseam. My position is one that advocates for complete transparency, full disclosure, and elimination of all grey areas and shenanigans. Some of my “suggestions” have been targeting the cronyism and games played by officials in that joke of a survey called a Peer Assessment. I believe that schools should be forced (by law) to make ALL their surveys public and searchable on THEIR website, and that every survey should have the President signing it! Some Sarbanes–Oxley for higher education. </p>

<p>PS Before someone brings it up (again,) my own alma mater was late in disclosing its admission data, and decided to be cute with the creative reporting of SAT scores. I was not only reprehensible but also clueless, as the inflated scores had NO impact on the rankings.</p>

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<p>Well, for one thing, 70.8% of UVA’s “early” applications are from OOS applicants. So even if you exclude the Virginians from the pool (and I’m not sure why you’d want to do that), the score would be UVA 9,685, Harvard 4,856. So I guess about twice as many non-Virginians are making UVA their “first choice” than Harvard. Or do “first choices” not count when the school in question is public, even if it’s an OOS public?</p>

<p>As I said, Michigan doesn’t give us a separate breakdown of “early” applications, but we do know that more than 75% of their total applications now come from OOS applicants. At least that was the case in 2012, when the pool of in-state graduating HS seniors had declined to about 100,000, of whom 9,800 applied to the University of Michigan. The rest of Michigan’s 42,000 applications for freshman admission–32,500 strong–came from OOS applicants. The explosion in applications since Michigan joined the Common App has come entirely from OOS sources; the number of in-state applicants has held steady or even declined slightly with the state’s shrinking number of graduating seniors. Thus it’s likely that almost all of the additional applications that pushed this year’s total up to 47,000 came from OOS. If so, and if I’m right that Michigan is now getting somewhere in the vicinity of 20,000 “early” applications (and that would be consistent with UVA where about half of all freshman apps are “early”), then it’s likely at least 13,000 or 14,000 “early” apps are coming from OOS applicants–and that’s assuming in-state applicants are applying “early” at a much higher rate than OOS applicants.</p>

<p>So conservatively, then, the score is Michigan 13,000, UVA 9,685, Harvard 4,856. Assuming the “first choices” of students to attend their own in-state public don’t count.</p>

<p>[Notes</a> from Peabody: The UVA Application Process: Early Action Admission Statistics](<a href=“http://uvaapplication.blogspot.com/2013/01/early-action-admission-statistics.html]Notes”>Notes from Peabody: The UVA Application Process: Early Action Admission Statistics)</p>

<p>[Enrollment</a> trends: Out-of-state students form 42.6 percent of University of Michigan’s freshman class](<a href=“http://www.annarbor.com/news/university-of-michigan-sees-increase-in-out-of-state-students/]Enrollment”>Enrollment trends: Out-of-state students form 42.6 percent of University of Michigan's freshman class)</p>

<p>I didn’t think we were discussing Michigan, but whatever – wasn’t the OP about WashU?</p>

<p>JWest – oh, puh-leez. I can see from your posts that you’re a Duke person. On what planet are you coming from where one could legitimately have “concerns” about WashU? Give me a break. Anyone with any brains whatsoever knows that if you took the top 20 (or maybe even top 30) schools and scrambled all the student bodies, they are indistinguishable in terms of brainpower. And the only meaningful distinctions at that level fall under a) financial aid and b) personal preferences for various quality-of-life dimensions (city vs suburb, etc.). Don’t even try to parse more finely than that. It’s stupid and ridiculous.</p>

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<p>Right. But your neck of the woods isn’t the only neck of the woods. In other parts of the country, selective schools are indeed that – selective schools – and the 8 Ivies do not have “magic dust” over them that vault them over other similar selective schools.</p>

<p>Put another way – it’s obnoxious that when someone from Boston “discovers” WashU, they have to question it and they’re going to assume that it’s an also-ran to the big boys, but if someone from the Midwest “discovers” Brown or Dartmouth, they are supposed to take it on faith that well, of course, that should be where they’d want to go.</p>

<p>Pizzagirl it’s very sad how simple-minded your comments can be. If you think you can replace the student body at a school like MIT or Caltech with the student body at Emory or Vanderbilt and still maintain the same graduation rate/student success then I dont know what to tell you – a veteran with CC.</p>

<p>While I agree that there may be no significant difference in intelligence in the student body at the top 15, I still think applicants should have as accurate of an assessment as possible of the competiteveness of a particular school’s student body.</p>

<p>You seem to think there is absolutely nothing wrong in questioning the data a school releases if some things dont add up. Well some people just arent like you. Some people would like to attend schools that are very honest and transparent in the data that they release.</p>

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<p>Oh, I know. Just poking some fun at xiggi’s new “ranking system” based on number of “early” applicants, which apparently is to be selectively (i.e., inconsistently) spplied. </p>

<p>As for regional biases, I’ll repeat what I said before: Wash U doesn’t have much of a regional following in the Midwest beyond Missouri and Illinois, and possibly Kansas. It draws more students from Massachusetts than from Michigan, more from New Jersey than from Ohio, more from Connecticut than from Indiana, even though in each of those pairings the Midwestern state is much larger in population. It draws more from tiny Maryland than from any Midwestern state except Illinois and Missouri, and it draws more from New York than from its home state of Missouri. That may be partly because in the Midwest the “public option” is usually a good one, and sometimes a great one. On the other hand, other top Midwestern privates–Chicago, Northwestern, Notre Dame–attract much larger numbers of students from across the Midwest. So maybe it has something to do with how the school markets itself.</p>

<p>Or it may be a cultural thing. St. Louis is these days usually classified as a Midwestern city, though at times in its past it has been considered (and considered itself) a Southern one. Its antebellum history was certainly more aligned with the South than with the North. Maybe some of those old perceptions persist–St. Louis isn’t sufficiently Northern for people from the Upper Midwest. Just speculation, but generally speaking, Midwesterners don’t attend Southern schools in large numbers; maybe Wash U is perceived to be one of them.</p>