<p>@Dave N </p>
<p>"When people say it’s not fair, I think it is more accurate to say “It’s not deterministic.” </p>
<p>Okay, so that is the most brilliant thing I have read on CC.</p>
<p>That should be the tag line of every “Chance Me” thread and every “Why didn’t I get in” thread.</p>
<p>I plan to use that a lot and will probably forget to site you every time, so I apologize in advance ;)</p>
<p>I just think WUSTL is looking for a different type of student, which may explain why people are quick to accuse them of having Tufts Syndrome. The SAT and GPA stats of their student body are extremely comparable to the Ivies. Also, I don’t think demonstrated interest was as big of a determinant as some have been saying. It can definitely boost your app, but it’s not going to make or break you, especially after seeing a decent amount of applicants get in with no demonstrated interest whatsoever.</p>
<p>@bigman: yes, likely letters.</p>
<p>I created an account solely so I could put my 2-cents in on this forum, which I have been religiously stalking for the past few months.</p>
<p>I was waitlisted to WUSTL, with a fair amount of demonstrated interest–someone who went to WashU introduced me to a local representative back in Apr/May of last year, who interviewed me. The interview went well, I applied for one of their scholarships, my stats are decent, and I felt, given their emphasis on demonstrated interest, that I had a decent chance. And I was bummed to be waitlisted (although not devastated).</p>
<p>However, going through all of the posts that people have been making on the decisions thread, I think there’s some money involved. As someone pointed out on the decisions thread, WUSTL is definitely NOT need-blind, and they’re not quite as gifted with money in the way that HYP are. I noticed that many of the people accepted, unless they had a specific hook (URM, etc) were in the income bracket of 200k+. I’m nowhere near that income bracket, and I feel (perhaps unjustifiably) that this might have played a role in my admissions decision. There’s a good chance I’m just trying to make up excuses for weaknesses in my app, but I just wanted to throw that out there and say that I don’t think it’s solely demonstrated interest or qualifications; money was a major part. </p>
<p>But again, take what I say with a grain of salt; I’m definitely a little bitter at the moment. Hahah. :)</p>
<p>^^ My household income is below $70k, and I was accepted without a strong ‘hook’ that I would quantify. I’m sure FA plays a role, but most need-aware schools are only need-aware for the border-line students.</p>
<p>purpleacorn, with all due respect, it is very clear form a review of the waitlists here that MANY of them are not “borderline” candidates. This doesn’t just apply to WUSTL obviously, but we’re not going to know all the exact reasons about what made the difference in individual cases.</p>
<p>From the data I can find online, as of the last two years WashU has had a 17% acceptance rate and an average SAT score percentile of 2085-2295 (25th/75thile). I would imagine that the number of apps (from roughly 28k) has gone up in the past couple of years because of their aggressive margeting campaign, but that’s just pure speculation.</p>
<p>I think that like all other highly selective schools, a lot of smart, qualified people are going to be rejected or waitlisted. Your SAT scores don’t make/break an application-- one is not ‘overqualified’ or ‘underqualified’ based on the basis of scores alone. Maybe some students were overlooked (I’m thinking in particular of those that had received likely letters to Ivies), but the majority of all students, waitlisted or accepted, are perfectly qualified. </p>
<p>I take offense to trying to quantify one’s waitlist as a result of being ‘overqualified’ because the SAT scores were a hundred points higher-- that’s what, three or four questions over the course of the test? I honestly don’t know how WashU makes its decisions, but there is a pervasive idea in a lot of these posts that one ‘should’ have gotten into WashU, but the waitlist means that they are really ‘too good’ for WashU-- but after a certain point, SAT scores become irrelevantly all ‘very, very, good,’ and trying to quanitify subjective parts of an appliaction is difficult. After the ‘very good’ SAT score, what makes one applicant ‘more qualified’ than another?</p>
<p>Totally agree with your last paragraph, and I don’t think many here really believe that the “better”’ students intentionally didn’t get admitted or that they think they are better than the kids who did get admitted. In the immediate aftermath of rejection there is going to be kneejerk impulse to have theories about the results. I don’t think it’s more than that and in truth I don’t think any of us know…and the questions some have I think are more about why they didn’t get in vs complaining about why others did.</p>
<p>Most of the people who apply to Wash U got through high school easily and have always been in the upper echelon when it comes to academics. Some of them fail to realize that by applying to such competitive universities, they are placings themselves on a level playing field with thousands of students of the same caliber. When you put your name in a hat with 30,000 other candidates who are just as smart as you, it becomes a game of probability. Maybe your 2350 on the SAT is better than someone else’s 2200, but admissions officers take a holistic approach and they have to deny admission to TONS of students who are technically good enough to get in.</p>
<p>as a waitlisted applicant, i just want to say that no one applying to WashU is “overqualified”. When students with great scores and EC’s are rejected from places like northwestern and MIT, no one says they’re overqualified, its just the randomness of the system. People need to accept that the same holds true for WashU, a school that is on the same level. WashU attracts the top applicants in the country, and could still get a high yield if they only picked kids with SAT above 2300, ACT’s above 35 and GPA’s north of 4.8. But they’re looking to build some depth of a student body. So just because you were rejected or waitlisted doesnt mean that your either overqualified or under qualified, it just means that you didnt fit into the puzzle the school is trying to put together. youll fit in somewhere else, dont worry</p>
<p>^^^^Agree with you but think you oversimplified. In some cases it’s got be more than “technically” qualified. And it’s not just kids with higher scores, it’s kids with the same or higher who appear to have equally strong ECs and other qualities. And with a pool that big and talented, maybe sometimes they don’t get it right, but not because of some strategic effort. It also may have to do with things we can’t see…URMs, athletes, specialists in something they need, geographic needs, etc.</p>
<p>Well said Watson.</p>
<p>do schools ‘know’ where else an applicant has applied,(is that information shared from the common app) does wash u use the common app?</p>
<p>please don’t take this as a knock on the efforts and achievements of those accepted. i love wash u and i consider it as a place for my ds. they have a great rep and amazing attributes.</p>
<p>nonetheless i have a degree of consideration for a 17 18 year old who has worked really hard and may get what seems like an unusual defer or reject from there. i think that for better or worse money does make the world go round. i think that institutions are not above making decisions that benefit their financial stabilty. look at banks, credit card companies, loan companies, even plenty of nonprofit hospitals (excellent recent time mag cover). ‘smarter’ acceptance offers equals better yield equals better ratings for the school equals stronger reputation for the school.</p>
<p>i think that there is plenty of evidence that schools may defer or reject a student if they think there is a high likelihood of a declination. there is plenty of evidence for same throughout cc. they are not going to advertise or publicize their specific policy. </p>
<p>i just hate to see a student internalize such a decision and see it as a refutation of their hard work. sometimes a school may have a logic that does not reward an individual’s merits.</p>
<p>I don’t think that WUStL rejects/waitlists “overqualified” students – there are many exceptionally intelligent, successful students at WUStL and one can’t be “overqualified.” However, I do think they look for students who truly want to go there. I applied (36 ACT, 4.45 GPA, many many ECs & leadership, blah blah blah) and got waitlisted, which was a shock initially, but maybe my interviewer could sense from our interview (which was after I was accepted to MIT) that I was leaning in that direction. It would have been nice to have the option of WUStL, but I am perfectly happy not being accepted at a school I am unlikely to attend based on where else I am applying (a question the interviewer asked me), my interests (bioengineering, which is clearly very strong at MIT), where I’ve been accepted (MIT), and my demonstrated interest (I didn’t get in touch with anyone or visit because my planned trip to St. Louis had to be canceled when it conflicted with my candidates’ weekend at Olin). I’m sure that I am a student who is, on paper, “qualified” to be accepted at WUStL, but there was really no chance that I would enroll there, so an acceptance would have been wasted on me.</p>
<p>EDIT: One more note…if schools like WUStL simply picked a line that separated “qualified” from “underqualified” and admitted only the top-scoring/highest GPA students, a lot of them would probably end up attending other top-tier universities and they could end up accepting many “less qualified” students from the waitlist even though these “less qualified” students had more interest in WUStL and certainly were more likely to enroll than the “more qualified” candidates.</p>
<p>It makes sense to want to send a nice thick acceptance letter to a student who truly wants to go to the school and a waitlist offer to a high-achieving student whose heart is set on HYPS.</p>
<p>^^^Last paragraph makes a lot of sense. Peoples reactions for this school blow me away. It happens all over the place…and it should. I speak from experience, I have an older D who applied a few years back and got WL…it was a bummer. She couldn’t have cared less and had little interest in attending (why apply, good question…friends, school pressure, a good shot … who knows). Now i have a D who got accepted - with this school it was a bit of surprise because its so tough who really knows. The point is that it attracts the best of the best and they just aren’t going to accept everyone…even those with amazing credentials.</p>
<p>Part of it should be a good life lesson. Companies aren’t going to hire people who show little to no interest in them…even if they have every qualification for the job. Why should schools be any different, if you want it bad enough go the extra mile, if you don’t just accept it.</p>
<p>As additional proof it happened to my older D elsewhere. She ended up going to a top 30 school but applied to a place that was a clear, clear saftey…and they WL her. It was bizarre but in a way we understood. If she pressed and pressed that saftey saying what a mistake they made I bet they would have taken her. But they were right</p>
<p>Some schools like Wash U are either so popular or so picky that they are reaches for most everyone . . . in other words, some of your schools are not “matches” for you and you should therefore consider that you might not get acceptances there </p>
<p>ones on your list I’d put in that category are it USC, Cornell, Columbia, Yale, HMC</p>
<p>if you get into one or more of them, that’s great! you will have some good choices!!</p>
<p>I wondered about that, too, finalchild. My D was waitlisted - and hadn’t applied for the Scholarships. She didn’t feel she would have a chance at the scholarships - although I encouraged her…
She has been accepted at all her other schools - Miami U, Loyola, Rhodes and Univ of Alabama - so she has many other good choices.</p>
<p>Wash U is an excellent up and coming school. But it takes an overly cynical approach to the college admission process.</p>
<p>Wash U engineers a lower admission rate by aggressively increasing the number of students who apply. It baits the hook through a barrage of e-mails and mailings sent to prospective applicants, some of whom have substandard test scores. Then it sets the hook through a no muss no fuss easy to prepare application that encourages even disinterested students to apply. </p>
<p>Having thus created a lower admission rate by encouraging unqualified or disinterested students to apply, it then increases its yield by focusing on declared interest more than any other highly selective college. The result is a self-serving policy that lures unqualified and disinterested students to apply so that the school can deny them in disproportionately high percentages.</p>
<p>Most colleges seek to improve their college ranking. But no school, other than the University of Chicago, manipulates this process as brazenly as Wash U does.</p>
<p>My favorite part is how they are able to get so many clueless (unqualified and disinterested as you put it) people to apply even though they only accept like 17%. Do you really think that many foolish people exist. Good for WashU if they really have those kind of powers.</p>