<p>I was just waitlisted by WashU, which was suppossed to be my ultimate safety school. I am kinda paranoid about giving out my stats on the internet, but I am ranked 5/350 at a very competitive school (many go to ivies nad other top schools), have a 2390 SAT, 2360 combined score of SATIIs, am a three sport varsity athlete, and have three major leadership positions. Also, my essays and teacher recs were very good.</p>
<p>Right now I am worried about my not getting in. However, I have been reassured that WashU waitlists its top candidates in order to keep its yeild high. I just want to make sure that WashU really does waitlist candidates that it feels are the best. Is there anyone else out there who applied to WashU as a major safety and got waitlisted?</p>
<p>Also, this might seem weird, but should I take my being waitlisted as a positive since it means that I am overqualified?</p>
<p>I am really sorry if I come across as arrogant in any shape or form. My wiatlist decision just put my in shock and I am currently just trying to make sense out of my situation.</p>
<p>um, you don't have anything special in your application that would make washu a safety school--probably a match though. Also, besides your very strong test scores, you don't have anything in your application that screams out "candidate that it feels is the best"</p>
<p>edit: sorry if my post seems condescending...but yours really came off as arrogant even if you didn't mean for it to</p>
<p>With a 2390, you certainly were reasonable to think you would get in. That being said, I agree that Wash U is no one's safety school. It's stats are right up there with all Ivie's, Duke, Georgetown, etc..... </p>
<p>**No, this does not mean they consider you overqualified!!! <a href="If%20so%20they%20would%20want%20you%20to%20increase%20their%20chances%20for%20a%20future%20Fulbright%20or%20Rhodes">/B</a>. It means you lost this particular crapshoot. (If so they would want you to increase their chances for a future Fulbright or Rhodes). You should win some others, just through the odds-- your stats are good. </p>
<p>The fact is Wash U is heavy laden with students from the mid-Atlantic, which is heavy laden with high achieving students. You didn't match some demographic they need this year. Neither did my high-achieving mid-Atlantic daughter with strong sports, scores, and academics. Or her best friend, with strong sports, higher scores and higher grades. It's nonsensical, but you should be aware that admissions at this level is nothing but a crap shoot. </p>
<p>Good luck with your other choices, there will very likely be some "Yes's".</p>
<p>I know exactly how you are feeling, whatchadoing. I'm applying to HPYS, and just got waitlisted at WashU, but I am from West Texas, definitely not an over-represented demographic area. I don't know what I am going to do now, considering all of my other schools are on par with WashU, except maybe get out my application for community college :-). Fantastic options for 4.0/4.0, 2300, 2/638 rank.</p>
<p>Your test scores and stats would indicate that you are booksmart, but no intelligent person would only have one safety and dare to call it WashU.</p>
<p>you remind me a lot of myself. wash u is not a safety school--they are known to waitlist a LOT of students like you, because it's clear from your stats that you are using them as a safety school. not a bad thing, just saying.</p>
<p>wash u is known for its non-competitive, warm, friendly student body. wash u uses different admissions standards to recruit its ideal student, deal with it</p>
<p>I think they accepted a lot of internationals.....(I live in THailand, but I'm korean)
I had a really bad SAT (2070 but first) and GPA
but my business teacher gave me a realy good rec.....
Is the olin school any different in accepting for admissions from the other colleges? The ranking of the business school is lower than what I expected</p>
<p>It's no safety, but I think most people have caught on to what WashU is doing: waitlisting very competitive applicants in order to raise their yields.</p>
<p>hm i didnt think of washU as my safety but i def thought i had a good shot. but i was waitlisted. i have similar stats to what ppl above have mentioned and have also won/placed in multiple national/international science competitions (ISEF, intel, westinghouse, etc)....so yea i was shocked. i dont understand their waitlist, but alot of other CCers have mentioned that WashU sometimes waitlists really good candidates b/c its very unlikely these ppl will end up matriculating since they'll go to Ivies and such.</p>
<p>ugh, this friggin blows so much -- Wash U was my number one, and I seriously don't know what to do. I thought I had a shot, which makes this blow even more. And I love Wash U dearly (well... I did), but if I didn't get in there, I don't have a hope for my other schools. Shttt!</p>
<p>Whatchadoing, when my S sent his application last year, we were thinking that was his safety school (even when it was his first choice), but once he was in, we all realized that many kids were better applicants by far than him. There are amazing kids out there with extraordinary lives besides they perfect scores; it must be very difficult for the admission officers to chose a few among them, but for sure, they do a great job, all the classes are amazing, smart kids and the perfect balance so everyone can feel at home at WUSTL</p>
<p>just because this topic comes up every year, I'll post 1 or 2 responses to this, just to put everything in perspective.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>WashU is no one's safety school.</p></li>
<li><p>WashU's acceptance rate this year will be less than 18 percent. Since we overenrolled last year, we are accepting less (while more students applied). Therefore, a lot of strong candidates with great stats will get rejected or waitlisted. For everyone person like you who got waitlisted, there is an equal or better candidate that we accepted. We are not a stats based school. Therefore, we factor things like personality and fit into our assessement of applicants. It is possible that you were waitlisted because our admissions office didn't think you had much to contribute to our community, and decided to offer an acceptance spot to someone we prefered more. WashU is not the only school to use their waitlist. We are bound to use it a bit more this year, to avoid overenrolling again like we did last year.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Wash U is too good of a school to waitlist the top applicants to help their yield, because a LOT of the top applicants want to go there... and as posters already said, there really isnt that much special about you - youve got the grades and scores, but so do thousands of other kids -- your ECs seem ok, but nothing stands out</p>
<p>I suspect that adcom's can often get an inkling of when a student has WUSTL at the top of their list, and when they are using it as a "safety" school (safety only in the mind of the applicant---I agree it is no safety.) </p>
<p>When two students have equal credentials, the one who has WUSTL at the top of their list is going to get a nod over the student using it as his/her safety. I would even go so far as to say that the one who has WU at the very top of the list can have inferior stats if they truly want to be there and have something to add to the community.</p>
<p>Coming out of my slight bitterness, I'm starting to think what Jeffwun said makes sense. It's not really yield protection; for every applicant with great stats that WashU waitlisted, an applicant with equally (or more) exceptional stats is admitted. Just base on CC, I can see that the admitted students don't really have lower stats than those waitlisted. Some people (like me) are probably not a good fit for WashU.</p>