<p>WashU does not have the best student body in the country. It has the student body with the highest numbers. It is not a secret that WashU picks students with the highest GPA and test scores but these students are not necessarily the best. After all, well-roundedness does nothing for your ranking.</p>
<p>As a graduating college senior, I'm no longer concerned with undergrad (although I kept receiving spam from WashU well into my second year of college). I've been looking at med school rankings and once again WashU has the strongest student body in terms of MCAT scores and undergrad GPA (by a sizable margin I might add). But is it really the most selective? </p>
<p>Acceptance rates of top med schools:
Harvard-4.7%
JHU-6.2%
Upenn-4.4%
WashU-10.5%
UCSF (public)-4.4%
UWash (public)-6.2%
Stanford-3.1%
Duke-4.0%
Yale-6.5%
Baylor-6.4%</p>
<p>In fact, out of the top 50 med schools, only around 9 schools or so have a higher acceptance rate than WashU (just about all of them public). Despite being the #4 ranked med school in the past few years, it's yield continues to hover at around 33%. It's very clear that WashU intentionally picks applicants with high numbers to a) inflate its rankings and b) to give the illusion that it has the best applicant pool. In reality, it simply isn't a very desirable school for top applicants.</p>
<p>Will I be applying to WashU? You bet. I have avg. EC's, avg. recs, but pretty good Cornell GPA and MCAT score. In the premed community, I would be considered a prime candidate for WashU.</p>
<p>This isn't to necessarily bash WashU. Both its undergrad and med schools are awesome. But let's not pretend like WashU doesn't try to manipulate its admissions decisions in order to hide the fact that it can't get the truly top applicants.</p>
<p>norcalguy - According to your description, I guess the students I have met on the WashU campus must there by mistake. I have found few students in other places that have been as well rounded. Involved in activities, sports community service, research and academics. You might have a different opinion once you experience WashU (although I realize med school has little or no interaction with the undergrads). It will be even more interesting if you indeed are "a prime candidate for WashU" med school and are accepted.</p>
<p>Good grief, I thought this would be applauded. After all, LACs are obviously the way to go according to CC. The smaller the better, right? </p>
<p>Princeton doesn't admit transfers, and Harvard recently cut its transfer pool in half. I wouldn't say WUStL is the only school to fiddle with its enrollment numbers. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>norcalguy - check out the decisions thread and you'll realize that WashU certainly doesn't only take those with the highest numbers, which is why so many people were surprised.</p>
<p>To be frank, the people that I have talked to/read about who have really been ****ed off with the way that WashU handles admissions have been very naive about the whole admissions process. Being sent a $.50 brochure by WashU or any college every month or so is not an indication of your chances of admissions, nor is it manipulation by WashU's part. Every college wants to attract the best applicants that it possibly can, and how do you do that--you market, as others here have said. Is it disingenuous for WashU to send out brochures to everyone and their brother? Possibly, in the same way that it is disingenuous for Tag commercials to claim that spraying yourself with nasty smelling cologne will get you a bunch of hot chicks. The intense marketing campaigns that WashU and all but a very very few select colleges engage in may very well be manipulative--but they are also totally transparent to anyone with any admissions or marketing knowledge whatsoever. </p>
<p>The hatred towards WashU really puzzles me. And no, before you ask, I do NOT have a WashU bias--I wasn't rejected/waitlisted there, I didn't want to go there, I didn't apply there, I'm not a legacy, I've never been there. I just don't understand how a school becomes the devil by waitlisting a bunch of kids. I was waitlisted at a couple of schools, and I did not assume that this was because the school's were trying to screw me over--I just assumed that maybe, perhaps, admissions decisions are difficult and there simply wasn't space to admit me. And--gasp--one of these colleges sent me literature--and I STILL was waitlisted! The horror!</p>
<p>
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Princeton doesn't admit transfers, and Harvard recently cut its transfer pool in half. I wouldn't say WUStL is the only school to fiddle with its enrollment numbers.
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</p>
<p>how in the world does Princeton not admitting transfers equal to WashU cutting nearly 10% of its student body???</p>
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The hatred towards WashU really puzzles me.
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</p>
<p>It's not hatred. It's just calling a spade a spade - nothing more, nothing less. When you see blatant and shameless number manipulation (and other tactics) for ranking purposes, it should be called out.</p>
<p>The "freshman enrollment goal consistent with what our University was supposed to be" is completely arbitrary. The founders of the school obviously did not limit the college enrollment and schools tend to grow in the course of time based on its needs and ends.</p>
<p>Statisticians aren't stupid. They know that when they admit a certain number of students, they are going to end up with a certan class size. Obviously they are doing this for a particular purpose. If the school is overpopulated, surely there are ways to accommodate this without jeopardizing students' opportunity for education like making new school buildings and dorms, which are what all other schools do, than reducing the size of the student body.</p>
<p>
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....surely there are ways to accommodate this without jeopardizing students' opportunity for education like making new school buildings and dorms, which are what all other schools do, than reducing the size of the student body.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Per Student Endowment.</p>
<p>Reducing the student body instantly increases the spending per student from the endowment.</p>
<p>And, probably reduces the total financial aid discounts. Usually, when colleges decide to reduce enrollment, they don't do it by cutting the number of rich full-pay students.</p>
<p>Oberlin is doing the same thing. Reducing its enrollment by 100 or so. The plant to cut slots for low income students, thus boosting the per student revenue and the per student endowment.</p>
<p>Top schools shouldn't be worried about the per-student-endowment. A school's purpose is to provide an education (and of course at a price). They're going to have their limitations, yeah, but with the billions that WUStL has, the difference that 500 students makes isn't significant -- except in rankings.</p>
<p>Think about it: Cornell has a smaller endowment and more students. It does just fine. =)</p>
<p>As for Oberlin, it's a participant in Questbridge's match program, granting full rides to various kids; it's giving ~$1,500,000 to students from last year's round. So I'm wondering the intent of this student-cut.</p>
<p>I don't see anything that WashU has done/is doing that is any different than any other college in the country (other schools have accidently overenrolled, other schools send out lots of literature, other schools use various tactics to manipulate the rankings). All I see is a school that is playing the game the same way that pretty much every other school is playing the game, and is, in my mind, being unfairly maligned for it. Why is it that people assume that WashU, in particular, has screwed them over? Why does the bitterness about WashU's policies cause many to strongly disparage the students who have been admitted by claiming that WashU is a joke as a school? </p>
<p>Perhaps more importantly, why do we continue to feed the ranking frenzy if it is so evil and we hate it so much? Why is it on the schools to rise above the frenzy--why can't WE take the responsibility?</p>
<p>On another note, is WashU not a need-blind school (I am not sure, but it seems to be)? Because if so, cutting enrollment should have no particular effect on the amount of aid awarded, and to suggest in this case that WashU is actively attempting to cut low income spots is a very serious claim--one that I would like to see some evidence for before I can in any way accept it as truth.</p>
<p>
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how in the world does Princeton not admitting transfers equal to WashU cutting nearly 10% of its student body???
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Princeton has 4900 undergrads and a nearly perfect retention rate (98%). With no transfers, it seems that an undergrad population under 5000 is a desired enrollment. WUStL, on the other hand, has a much larger undergrad population of 7500. Even cutting 500 students (6.7%) results in a college nearly half as big again as Princeton. </p>
<p>Calculate endowment, which interesteddad keeps bringing up. Princeton's endowment is approximately $13 billion, giving a per student endowment of $1.9 million. WUStL's endowment is $4.7 billion, giving a per student endowment of $350,000.</p>
<p>Then assume that only 14% is available for financial aid, which is the amount Princeton sets aside. For Princeton, these means each student can receive $266,000- more than enough to cover the cost of their education. WUStL, on the other hand, has a mere $49,000 set aside for each student's financial aid- barely enough to cover one year!</p>
<p>... yes, but now WUStL is regarded as a top school, with its 4+ billion-dollar endowment. It shouldn't be too concerned about a mere 500 students, except for ranking purposes, from what I can see.</p>
<p>um, thanks for that. but it didn't actually address anything i was saying. </p>
<p>remember you wrote:</p>
<p>
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Princeton doesn't admit transfers, and Harvard recently cut its transfer pool in half. I wouldn't say WUStL is the only school to fiddle with its enrollment numbers.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>So, I ask again, how does Princeton not accepting transfers = "fiddling" with its enrollment numbers? and further, how do you equate that to WashU cutting 7% of its student body?</p>
<p>
[quote]
So, I ask again, how does Princeton not accepting transfers = "fiddling" with its enrollment numbers? and further, how do you equate that to WashU cutting 7% of its student body?
[/quote]
Hmm, I don't think I should have phrased it quite like that. What I was getting at is that a medium size with an enormous endowment is what allows schools like Harvard and Princeton to maintain a monopoly on top students (i.e. going loan-free); maintaining that small size is in their best interest. If WUStL wants to boost its status/ranking and compete with the "big dogs," it's going to have to do SOMETHING to improve its financial situation.</p>
<p>I really don't understand how most of you who are ignorant about WashU's practices can sit there and attack them utterly outright. It's absolutely ridiculous. If you have no investment in this school, then why do you care?</p>
<p>They're a top-notch school in this country and they have people who work there who know what they're doing. The newspaper just reported that they're reducing numbers...because they need to. I just recently visited and learned of the effects of this overenrollment. The admissions people and whoever else decided that this is what's BEST for THEIR university. Who the hell are you to say otherwise?</p>
<p>I really don't see what the problem is. They need to make sure they hit the target of 1350 students. And if you do the math, 1350 times 4 is 5400 students. If they had that amount in each class it would be 5400 students, while they're shooting for 5800 students compared to the current 6300. I guess this freshmen class might be a bit smaller to accomodate for the previous overenrollment?</p>
<p>Why must you all be prestige-mongers? Do you really think they make decisions just so that they get their rankings up? That this is the be-all, end-all of their mission as a university? They want good students and they want their students to be happy, nothing more. For you to continuously criticize them just continues to overstate your misconceptions and your quick judgements about things you don't understand and how you want to argue just to argue. I don't care if you're an adult or a student...you don't know what you're talking about, so stop. Let WashU be WashU.</p>
<p>EditorinChief88: you really defeat the point of this entire site. Why do we care that Harvard's narrowing its transfer number? Why do we care that Sarah Lawrence College and others are trying to boycott US News? Because this is *College*Confidential. And many think that WUStL's practices are dirty. But this is a discussion, not a revolution, so don't criticize CC's members for actually contributing their thoughts.</p>
<p>And if we're so ill-informed, why doesn't WUStL just put out common data sets to inform us plebeians, eh?</p>