<p>I was accepted and I have “overqualified” stats (I think… 2400 SAT, top 5% of class, lots of leadership ECs, etc), applied for FA, and didn’t visit. I did have an interview and requested more information, but I don’t know if that’s really “showing interest.” Also an ORM.</p>
<p>So, yeah, you can’t really say Tuft’s Syndrome or FA are the deciding factors.</p>
<p>It seems that WashU plays this game in an interesting way. First of all, they don’t require any additional essays on their supplement. This works for them, as they get a LOT more applicants because of this. IMO, the kids who work on countless essays up to the deadline might just shoot WashU an application without giving it much thought. After that, WashU admissions can sit back and enjoy ALL those applications. They can assess which kids they actually have a shot at getting. I believe that’s why so many really top candidates are rejected. If those people haven’t shown demonstrated interest, they know they will probably go elsewhere and just reject them. It gives WashU the perception of being REALLY selective. Yes, they are very selective and it’s an amazingly great school - but they have created this situation themselves. The HUGE waitlist is because they want to keep their stat’s extremely competitive in terms of acceptance rate, but they still want to keep a pool of kids out there as possibilities - after April 1, lots of great candidates on their waitlist might only have WashU as a possibility. It’s a numbers game and WashU has played it well. My guess is that EVERY kid on the waitlist has a great chance of acceptance when the dust clears.</p>
<p>[Dirty</a> Secrets of College Waitlists - The Daily Beast](<a href=“http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-03-30/dirty-secrets-of-college-waitlists/2/]Dirty”>The Daily Beast: The Latest in Politics, Media & Entertainment News)</p>
<p>Washington University in St. Louis has notoriously huge waitlists they wont even tell you how long. My bet is they put over 10,000 kids on the waitlist every year for a class of 1,350. The thing is, though, they dont count you on the waitlist until you tell them its your first choice. Its a despicable practice, but its a popular place and they can get away with it. Jon Reider, director of college counseling at San Francisco University High School</p>
<p>Can someone explain what “accepting” a spot on the waitlist means? It’s not binding, is it? Since no one (or almost no one) was accepted off the waitlist last year, does it really matter if you accept or not?</p>
<p>I did NOTHING to show interest (no visit / interview… nothing) and was accepted. Strong grades in 10 APs, Strong scores (not perfect), Leadership in multiple sports (not a recruited athelete), music, commitment to a cause, no hooks.</p>
<p>I think being very well rounded, strong achievement in multiple areas (not just grades & scores) did it.</p>
<p>Again, congratulations to everyone who got accepted. Wash U is a great school and you deserve it!</p>
<p>I do not consider myself as an overqualified applicant and I do not blame FA for the waitlist.
However, the perception about Wash U is real.
I am from the Midwest so I applied schools such as Vanderbilt, Wash U and U Chicago.</p>
<p>‘Predictions’ from my GC who knows my ECs and essays;
U Chicago: Good chance of acceptance
Vanderbilt: Good chance of acceptance, not sure about CVS
Wash U: “Wash U waitlist a lot of applicants”</p>
<p>Actual results:
U Chicago: Accepted (EA)
Vanderbilt: No CVS, Waiting on admission result
Wash U: Waitlisted</p>
<p>Looking through the results thread, it seems like FA had a much stronger influence on admissions than ‘over-qualification’ did.</p>
<p>I’m offended by WUStL admissions and I didn’t even apply. All of my friends who applied (all IB students and multiple National Merit Finalists) were waitlisted. Looking through these threads I see countless other qualified students mysteriously on the waitlist. I understand that admissions are competitive and that not all qualified applicants are accepted, but since when is WUStL as competitive at HYPSM? I have to agree with some of the posts on the thread and the quote from the Daily Beast. WUStL is using the waitlist as a way to manipulate top students.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1085580-wash-u-st-louis-really-top-tier-school.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1085580-wash-u-st-louis-really-top-tier-school.html</a></p>
<p>ANother thing about their admissions that I was just reading about is their January program. They don’t talk about it on the website or anything, but I was reading some threads about it and it’s basically for ~40 students who can’t come to WUSTL until the spring semester and have to do something else in the fall (not necessarily a bad thing, can be a great thing but still). Those students are chosen by a combination of factors, including social and academic maturity and…interest in the school. Often they are pulled from the ED pool (kids who were deferred then accepted) because WUSTL knows that since it is their first choice those kids are willing to jump through whatever hoops they need to attend. That is pretty manipulative IMO.</p>
<p>If the information helps anyone, I applied ED and was deferred, and then got rejected RD. I thought I showed a lot of interest. I visited the school twice, had an interview, applied ED, applied for scholarship, and visited the admissions officer when she visited my school twice. Grade wise, I’m pretty much their average student. I thought I was a good fit.
But what I heard from the admissions officer’s mouth is that they go by “feeling”. I’m not even kidding, they say they can just “feel” who’s good for their school, so in the end the process is just very random. I know people with worse ACT or GPAs then myself who got accepted, and people with 36 ACT’s who got rejected! What I’ve learned through this process is not to take it personally, because it really has nothing to do with you.</p>
<p>I wonder how much of an impact the common application has had on top school admissions. If kids are applying to 15-20 schools of which 10 are probably identical for each applicant with 5 individually chosen safeties/regional schools. I have no idea how colleges sort through this man made mess. If I were in admissions at a top school, I would drop the common app. I like the way they do it in England. You can apply to only 5 schools and either Oxford or Cambridge - not both. I also wonder if SAT/ACT share any info with colleges.</p>
<p>Since no one responded to my previous comment, I want to ask people who are upset at Wash U a couple questions:
<p>I don’t purport to defend a seemingly large wait list (I do go to Wash U but I’m trying not to be biased) and I don’t know why it is so large, I’m just trying to have people participate in a more informed discussion. With most of the comments on here, there is no logic to why people are upset other than they weren’t accepted. I know this is an internet forum so logic doesn’t always surface too much, but at least try to make comments that have some basis in it.</p>
<p>^ Pretty much exactly what flashmountain said.</p>
<p>It definitely is interesting that on other schools students merely talk about how competitive the applicant pool is whenever there is a lot of bad news on a results thread. Then the same thing happens on Wash U and every other new thread is about the crazy admissions at Wash U. Sure, they do wait list a comparatively high percentage, but they are still accepting a similar amount of very qualified students.</p>
<p>^People react differently than with other schools because they are more skeptical of Wash U admissions. Other schools are way more transparent. … Wash U doesn’t even publish its Common Data Set. It doesn’t publish its ED stats either.</p>
<p>People need to realize that no matter how qualified they were, most other applicants were exactly the same and only 1 in every 5 people could get in. Wash U judges its applicants on many more factors than just academic quality. No one can be sure of exactly what all of those criteria are, but stop complaining. It’s one of the best schools in the country and a crap shoot for ANYONE who applies.</p>
<p>I can understand that a lot of waitlisted people are upset at their decisions, but it seems like there is an awful lot of complaining on WUSTL boards. I know that 34-35s and 2300s get rejected or waitlisted, but seriously there definitely is a point where slightly higher test scores don’t make all that big of an impact on the admissions decision. WashU has TONS of kids who are just flat out smart applying. I mean, just look at the stats for accepted kids…you’ll have a hard time finding a score lower that a 32-33 act or a 2150 sat. everyone has UW GPAs of 3.9-something. EC’s are all pretty good. EVERYONE that got in is really smart, it’s just a matter of who WashU wants, and i think that’s where your essays/interviews come in. You can call it Tufts or being “overqualified” if that’s how you see it, but really it might be a lot simpler than that. WashU knows all the kids they accept and waitlist are smart, and that’s who they want at the school…but aside from stats they don’t see you as the best fit for their school. </p>
<p>And I’m sure there will be some posters who say “but I got into HYP! how could washu waitlist me?!” Haha my parents got MBAs from Duke and said the same thing used to happen: “but i got into HBS! how could Fuqua reject me!?” there’s quite a respectable response from getting rejected ivy league, but from lower ivies like these schools, it’s a huge deal to get a waitlist/rejection if ivies accept you. fact is, washu is an up-and-coming school that will have a lot more prestige in the coming years. it makes sense that they have admissions trends that are strangely selective. besides, no one can be a good fit for every school. when you get waitlisted, i see it more as washu saying “you’re smart and you’d do well here…but this isn’t the best fit for you.” I’m sure you’ll all get into great schools anyways. cheers!</p>
<p>^Agreed. Regardless of whether Tufts Syndrome plays a significant role in admissions (not saying it doesn’t), its foolish and inaccurate to presume that all waitlisted applicants were “overqualified” and HYPSM-bound instead. There are many waitlisted candidates whom seem very qualified for HYPSM, but there are also many accepted candidates whom seem equally qualified. I feel like college admissions are just so unpredictable these days.</p>
<p>^Yeah, the “I’m overqualified” justification is a real cop out. The people saying that are no more qualified than plenty of other people who WERE accepted. Why didn’t Wash U see the accepted students with 2300+'s, 4.0’s, 34-36 ACT’s, and all the rest of their qualifications as equally “overqualified?” It’s silly for people to try to justify to other readers that they were simply “overqualified” and therefore not selected. What are they then saying about the people who WERE selected? Ridiculous.</p>
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<p>Well, WUSTL does have the same stats as Stanford. </p>
<p>[College</a> Navigator - Stanford University](<a href=“College Navigator - Stanford University”>College Navigator - Stanford University)
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