<p>@letsgoeat My D’s counselor suggested the same. WashU seem to be paying far too much attention to “expressed interest”. The only question is how serious will WashU take your ‘serious interest’ AFTER being rejected from other schools? :)</p>
<p>BTW - A small piece of advice to everyone that considers themselves “Over Qualified” for WashU… No point flapping your mouth until you have admission letters from one of the top 5 schools. Then you would have earned the right to state that you were “Over Qualified”. Until then stay humble, a quality that WashU probably looks for.</p>
<p>It is public knowledge on a few of those college search website (I just checked collegedata . com), but you can even do the math yourself. </p>
<p>Total accepted = Total applicants * acceptance rate</p>
<p>Yield = Freshman class size / Total accepted</p>
<p>I don’t know what the acceptance rate last year (although 28,000 applied), but 2 years ago there were 25,000 applicants and 20% were accepted. We overenrolled that year with somewhere north of1,600 freshman. Plug in the numbers and you get 32-33% yield.</p>
<p>Wait…I’m terribly under-qualified and got wait listed. Does that mean there’s no chance of getting in? If they have so many “overqualified” students on the waitlist, why did WashU even bother waitlisting me instead of rejecting me? Or do they only reject the truly terrible students?</p>
<p>For the record, I got in off the waitlist last year (<200 students accepted off waitlist) and had no demonstrated interest other than attending my HS’s WashU info session. I sent them an email of interest after I heard back from all my schools (although I don’t really think the timing matters that much).</p>
<p>Also: it really does help to stay overnight (I’m a host), as well as tour/interview, but it’s not necessary (I did none of the above).</p>
<p>Also also: I was top 12% of my grade (not top 10%) and made it in off waitlist, take that as you will.</p>
<p>quick question----is it a bad idea to state that you want to change your major choice on interest letter? I think I applied as biology—cuz I had no idea what I really wanted to major in— but after college apps I sat down and found that I really liked environmental science. Would it show lack of commitment? My activities actually show more interest in ev sci than bio…though my bio teacher wrote my rec.</p>
<p>Just from my personal experience with Wash U, I think they place a lot of emphasis on the admissions process in the whole relatives and family members who have gone to the university prior. Out of the ten or so students who applied to Wash U this year from my school, only the ones with older siblings who went to Wash U got in, while everybody else was waitlisted/rejected (including myself) - All of us had similar resumes, I actually thought mine was stronger than others’.</p>
<p>so this might be completely off base…but is WashU need blind? because I heard a rumor recently that a large amount of WashU acceptance vs. watlists were people who applied for aid (the ones that got waitlisted). Does anybody know if there’s any truth to such a rumor?</p>
<p>Needing aid might hurt the extremely borderline applicants.<br>
What is true however is that most of the scholarship money is likely gone by now. If they do accept people off the waitlist, the majority of them will not need any aid,</p>
<p>Okay thanks. I know how convoluted and different the application process is for each school, but it just looks funny when you see someone that gets into CalTech, MIT, Penn, and Duke early, and then get waitlisted at WashU. Still love WashU though, such a nice campus.</p>
<p>WashU might start calls before May, but don’t expect it. They took ~100 off waitlist last year (myself included) – calls ranged from early May to late June (that I’m aware of).</p>
<p>My son was waitlisted here, but will turn down WUSTL’s offer of a place on the waitlist. He got into a couple of decent schools and will make his choices from that group. WUSTL had been very high on his list, but not high enough to survive waitlisting him.</p>
<p>do people really think that wash u can magically waitlist every “overqualified” student and still maintain such high average SAT scores and such high quality of students? No one seems to be considering that. The waitlisted whiners use the stats of about 20 other complaining students who were waitlisted instead of looking at the University’s actual numbers, which represent the ENTIRE population, not just the CC population. 2011: CR range is 690-760. Math is 710-780. ACT English and Math are both 32-35. These numbers are nearly equivalent to those of Duke, Stanford, and Penn, to name a few. It seems like it would be nearly impossible for Wash U to have such good numbers if it did not accept most of its best applicants.</p>
<p>Also, can anyone really say how qualified another applicant is based on a single post on the website? The application process is holistic. An applicant is more than a number. </p>
<p>Wash U is an elite school, and like all elite schools, there are more qualified candidates than there are spots in the freshmen class. It’s as simple as that.</p>
<p>So to all you whiners, stop being so bitter. If you think you are so “overqualified” you should have no trouble getting into “better” schools and being successful. Why would you even want to go to a school that only accepts your inferiors!?!</p>
<p>P.S. I was accepted to Wash U, and based on your criteria for “overqualified” I should have been a shoe-in for the waitlist</p>