<p>I was playing with the cross admit calculator on parchment.com. I have to say that for most college comparisons that I tried, the percentages seemed at least reasonable, with one notable exception: Washington University at St. Louis.</p>
<p>WUSTL appears to have amazing cross admit success against top schools.
WUSTL 56% vs. Stanford 44%
WUSTL 50% vs. Princeton 50%
WUSTL 52% vs. Penn 48%
WUSTL 65% vs. Columbia 35%
WUSTL 69% vs. Michigan 31%
WUSTL 56% vs. MIT 44%
WUSTL 82% vs. Cal Tech 18%
WUSTL 41% vs. Harvard 59%
WUSTL 48% vs. Yale 52%</p>
<p>Books could be cooked. However, in many such cases, not that many may be cross-admitted, and in the cases of MIT and Caltech, it’s possible that those who matriculated WashU instead are the types that perhaps fear the rigor of those two (I can imagine a pre-health or something who somehow gets cross-admitted getting cold feet about MIT or Caltech) I would also keep in mind that their may not be as many students cross-applying to WashU and some of these schools in the first place which again, suggests that some that even cross-apply are perhaps the “special” types. There is also the fact that many other schools compete against them that fall outside of those that may be more attractive than WashU to many students today. Duke and Vanderbilt come to mind (the more pure “work hard play hard” reputation schools). Correlating these data to their overall yield implies that you think these are basically their only competition (and that tons of WashU students are also getting into Stanford or Harvard for that matter). I would need to know how many cross-admits there were between each pair to pass any real judgement. I just suspect it’s not as big as they would like it to be. It’s extremely selective, but not really the level of some of those places and typically attracts completely different types to apply in the first place. Again Caltch and WashU should not have much overlap. </p>
<p>@ Bernie12
“Correlating these data to their overall yield implies that you think these are basically their only competition (and that tons of WashU students are also getting into Stanford or Harvard for that matter).”</p>
<p>I am not trying to imply that at all. I really do not know who their main competition is. WashU is an excellent school, but I did not think that they would be very successful against any of these schools (maybe about even vs. Michigan?). So I was surprised. </p>
<p>Parchment is self-reporting and WashU has a pretty good reputation for tooting their own horn, so I would guess that WashU might be incentivising their matriculants to post the data in their favor to Parchment. Not that this is actually happening, but any self-reporting system can be manipulated like that, especially if it’s a small dataset. </p>
<p>As someone said, how many cross admits between WashU and Caltech can there be? And if you get the 2-3 who chose WashU over CalTech to post, whereas the CalTech folks could care less, WashU comes out the winner. Seems to me it would be a low cost way to get some good publicity your way - offer a $25 Panera Gift Card if you come in to Admissions and post the data to Parchment, you’ll get a pretty good turnout. $2500 would get you 100 kids and that could throw the Parchment data your way.</p>
<p>@Much2learn: I think it may be able to beat Michigan, however, I don’t really buy the other ones. I’m suggesting that the numbers may come out that way because ultimately the sample size is low and thus will have high sensitivity. Like if there are only 10 cross-admits between WashU and Caltech because the app. pools are naturally so different, and 8 choose WashU because such cross-apps and subsequent admits claim that they are pre-med or pursuing other extremely GPA sensitive post-grad opps, then having 8 choose WashU will make that percentage/ratio so high. However, if the app. pools actually did have much more overlap (maybe in some alternative universe, lots of students view the environments at the two to be similar or actually valued more academic rigor or something like that as opposed to the norm of today) , I am willing to bet that Caltech would win or at least have a lower differential.</p>
<p>WashU is known to game for rankings purposes. It’s a fine university, but when you look at the few lognormal professions where brand matters (MC, high finance, and maybe trying to launch a tech startup), it just doesn’t do that well compared to the Ivies or most of the other Ivy-equivalents or even the top state schools like Cal/UMich/UVa/UT-Austin/UCLA or certain programs at other publics (worse than Kelley-IU at placing in to an IB and worse pipeline in to the Silicon Valley startup world than CS@Illinois).</p>
<p>Only JHU and Emory do as badly among the Ivy-equivalents in those fields.</p>
<p>@PurpleTitan : You should probably include VU and ND as well. However, with high finance, location seems to matter a lot (and then whether or not the school has a culture/student body that really likes the idea of IB or high finance as opposed to other lucrative careers). Being in NE or near a huge US city (like Chicago or NYC) can benefit you there, so I don’t know if it[s all about brand. You shouldn’t include biotech start-ups because JHU nor Emory (and probably not WashU) aren’t going to perform that badly there unless you’re talking about undergrads (Emory does especially well in the drug discovery area of patents and start-up companies. The BME program between us and Tech also does not hurt) in which case it’s no surprise because at schools like these, most natural science majors are pre-health and needless to say, these are not the types trying to start up biotech companies (no offense) more so than trying to get into med. school. However, at least Solazyme was created by Emory College alum, even though it was in the 90’s before Emory’s science curriculum went kind of soft (which mainly just corresponds to significantly higher enrollment numbers. You don’t see honors and project labs in the biol department anymore, but at least they exist in neuroscience I guess which is relatively new. However, most neuro majors are the hardcore pre-health types so likely would not take a project lab over the clinical practicum course) and all science students became pre-med or something: <a href=“Oil Change | Emory University | Atlanta GA”>Oil Change | Emory University | Atlanta GA;
<p>Also, considering the fact that Emory’s incoming stats. is much lower than other elite schools, the current level of entrepreneurial spirit (and its growth) on the campus is actually not bad (as in better than some others with much " better" incoming students). I think some of the same things could likely be said for JHU (which has excellent BME program). However, I suspect great schools suffer in the start-up/entrepreneurial spirit arena when they admit students with high stats who simply don’t have the mindset to want to take risks like that. Like when you admit a bunch of hardcore pre-professionals who see themselves on a single proven track to success, many will claim that they don’t have time to dedicate to doing or thinking about such things because they must focus on getting high grades and building their resume in more traditional, “safe” ways associated with admissions to whatever professional school or employment by certain companies. Turning it around at such schools takes having or developing an atmosphere that promotes students who come in like this becoming a bit bolder. It could be elements of the curriculum that inspire students (as it appears to have for the Solazyme guys and the latest girl who is trying to “revolutionize” packaging at Emory) or administrative or student driven support for entrepreneurship. Our business school now hosting a more serious business plan competition is not bad (HackAtl) because as we know, most UG business programs are known for the innovation they crank out (but often A and S colleges and engineering schools are) and students from a robotic club (mind you that we don’t have an engineering school) started HackEmory which focuses on learning to create apps that incorporate a cool idea. The attendance at the event skyrocketed compared to its first with people coming from other schools in Atlanta and other schools within Emory to participate. The girl who created the alternative type of box also was one of the driving forces behind the theme of the almost complete freshman dorm at Emory which will be themed Social Entrepreneurship (we already have one for sustainability which has had an effect and has churned out students who successfully received grants for initiatives that promote that on campus, and we have one dorm that focuses on Creativity and Innovation, but I think they have a lot of work to day to truly promote that and bigger dorms tend to do better promoting and emphasizing their themes. Smaller dorms do better when the theme is accommodated in the curriculum. Turman encourages students to take freshman seminars on matters of citizenship for example and there are many of those. Hamilton experimented with this by selecting several students to take the ORDER freshman seminar which has students design a project, run the experiment, and defend the findings/results while the in-class component approaching a central topic from the perspective of many disciplines). </p>
<p>In other words, there are ways to improve those things, it just takes time and effort and both student and administrative (Or faculty. Like science faculty who use inquiry and discussion based methods know that if they do so successfully, they will promote more creativity and innovation among students. Interested faculty just have to be encouraged or offered incentives to use such methods of teaching) participation or demand. What shocks me is that high stats. schools like WashU and some others seem not to really catch on and draw amazing students but many then remain in an almost stereotypical pre-prof. mode. Perhaps the influence of the arts and the size of the liberal arts entity plays a role. As in, maybe many schools with more UG professional/non-CAS entities don’t do as well because students are too busy specializing in those areas to perhaps be inspired by liberal arts (which includes sciences, especially when taught differently from traditional style STEM courses) courses and experiences.</p>
<p>@bernie12:
Yeah, I had in mind more undergrad-to-startup rates.</p>
<p>BTW, while a decade ago, I would have included ND and Vandy as schools which don’t really get you in to high finance despite their reputation, these days, ND and Vandy (and well as G’Town and even BC) place a decent number of kids in to bulge bracket IBs).</p>
<p>There are some theories for this: One is that the IBanks are losing their luster so that the bulge brackets aren’t getting as many of those high GPA Ivy athlete types they use to target. Another is that many more undergrad b-school kids from the schools listed above are targeting/prepping for those positions, and they come across as more polished and knowledgeable about what the work entails than your typical traditional lib arts Ivy applicant.</p>
<p>Finally, I have noticed that 2 of the 3 schools I listed as underperforming in lognormal fields are traditionally very pre-med-heavy schools compared to even their peers (JHU and WashU; is Emory the same?) From the schools’ perspective, I’m not sure that’s a great strategy. Stanford’s endowment didn’t explode because of its pre-meds.</p>
<p>Parchment’s numbers are self-reported, and are a small sample, so I wouldn’t read too much into this.</p>
<p>Still, some theories as to why Wash U would have higher cross admit success than you might expect. </p>
<p>Merit scholarships is an obvious one. Wash U gives more merit awards than peer colleges with similar rankings, and a good merit award may sway an admitted student.</p>
<p>I also think that Wash U has a more self-selected pool of applicants than other selective schools. Because it has less “man on the street” name recognition, the students who choose to apply there are doing so because they have done research into schools and are genuinely interested in the school, rather than applying just because the school is well-known, or thought be to prestigious.</p>
<p>“WashU is known to game for rankings purposes. It’s a fine university, but when you look at the few lognormal professions where brand matters (MC, high finance, and maybe trying to launch a tech startup), it just doesn’t do that well compared to the Ivies or most of the other Ivy-equivalents or even the top state schools like Cal/UMich/UVa/UT-Austin/UCLA or certain programs at other publics (worse than Kelley-IU at placing in to an IB and worse pipeline in to the Silicon Valley startup world than CS@Illinois).”</p>
<p>Do you have ANY data to support your dubious claims?</p>
<p>Bain, BCG, and McKinsey (where I am an engagement manager) all recruit at WUSTL. The same cannot be said for several schools you’ve listed.</p>
<p>@PurpleTitan. I don’t think Vandy does that well (though they are doing better) in the finance placement. It won’t do too much better than Emory (despite the SAT gap, we make up for it with the b-school. We may actually outperform them some) and G-town has always placed really well. One would also expect the same for ND which has very high SAT’s and a top (and somethings rated “the” top UG b-school). As for attracting pre-meds, it isn’t a strategy so much as a perpetuation of a stereotype about a school “great for pre-med” (our admissions office is specifically trying to address this issue because they know it’s a weakness). For WashU and JHU, it actually holds water so pre-meds still go there in droves. However, most pre-med classes at Emory are not anywhere near as great as the science and computational courses typically taken by those who are not a part of that crowd. So while some incoming students still hold on to the belief that “Emory is great if you’re pre-med”, I feel as if students are trending away from the track once they actually experience how lackluster most of the pre-health core courses are and how they don’t really train that well for MCAT sort of thinking. On top of that, many grade hard. Eventually students just find other things to do and lately that has been start-ups (one guy was a member of the “fiscal note” trio that recently made a magazine’s list for top 10 college start-ups). However, once you are mainly known as a pre-med school, then the app. pool becomes less diverse. I also imagine that many such schools don’t have UG alums that well-represented in academia (as in pursued a doctorate in the sciences), so there isn’t really much incentive for more nerdy science students (whether they be pre-industry, pre-doctoral, pre-MDPhD…whatever) to show up and make their mark. Conversely, these schools have alumni very well-represented in things like the medical field. It appears to buck the trend and get more well-rounded science applicants takes a lot of proactive measures on the part of the admissions team and the administration. </p>
<p>A lot of it has to with marketing. If your school is marketed more as an intellectual/academically diverse school and show opps. for students who usually otherwise won’t consider the school, places like Emory may do better. However, if you continuously hype up all of the departments popular with pre-meds on tours and brochures such as neuroscience, human health, global health, and anthropology, then you know who you’ll draw. Also, I would venture that more innovation can come from other types of pre-healths such as those considering public health school as a “final” destination (as opposed to a bridge between UG and med. school). Many such students at Emory are typically the ones coming up with great projects or initiatives. We have many pre-meds that are awesome as well, but it seems the students associated with the former interests in healthcare often contribute in more interesting ways and are a bit more aggressive about putting academics in action (as opposed to approaching academics as a chore/series of checklists that you need A’s in and then doing EC’s in the spare time). Another issue is often the curriculum at some places cannot really support those who enter and are a bit beyond the pre-health level of science classes. For example, Emory no longer having honors classes has really hurt it in its ability to attract more students like the biol. major who co-founded solazyme. If you are a more “nerdy” student that is more willing to be challenged, the curriculum must have more options to support this beginning at the freshman level. </p>
<p>Making the only 2 options for first year chemistry students be a standard gen. chem class or an organic chemistry course is not going to cut it for those who not only have AP/IB/A-level credit, but have competed well in things like national science competitions and thus demand more than most students do. You can’t tell a student extremely experienced in biology that their AP/IB credit will only get them credit for one semester of the course and then not offer a more advanced option for them if they want it. You also can’t make strong non-premed (and pre-med) students take a watered down calculus based physics course as opposed to offering an even higher one for a more select group of students. All of this is the sort of crap that Emory does which naturally will attract only pre-health types or those who don’t really care to be challenged by the curriculum that much (the problem is that we aren’t necessarily the only “top” school like that). Many Ivies and better non-Ivies have mastered this tiering of first year courses that signals that the school is able to challenge students of all backgrounds including the very advanced (which is why places like Harvard, MIT, and Chicago have abstract algebra classes for freshmen. In fact, Harvard has 2 levels of it). </p>
<p>@Saachi "Still, some theories as to why Wash U would have higher cross admit success than you might expect.</p>
<p>Merit scholarships is an obvious one. Wash U gives more merit awards than peer colleges with similar rankings, and a good merit award may sway an admitted student."</p>
<p>Yes, that is possible, but it just does not add up to me. The yield of 33% includes ED applicants. That means that they must only get about 20%? of their regular decision admits to enroll. If they are only getting 1 in 5 overall, it is hard to believe that the 1 is a cross admit from Stanford, Penn, Harvard, or MIT. They get that 1 and then are turned down by 4 kids who picked Saint Louis University, or Missouri? That is hard to believe.</p>
<p>I think that these cross admit numbers must be overstated. Harvard and Stanford are around an 80% yield. I have to think that they lose students mainly to each other, Yale, MIT, and Princeton, and occasionally to Columbia or Penn. They certainly could lose an occasional student to Wash U, but I doubt that they lose very many. There is just no way that Wash U can win head to head against those schools and not have a yield that is double their 33.6% actual yield.</p>
<p>I don’t know why, but the number have to be overstated.</p>
<p>@Blah2009: Sorry, I’m more familiar with Wall St. and Silicon Valley, which I know WashU doesn’t have strong pipelines to (unless they were developed very recently, as in the past year or so).</p>
<p>It had been my understanding that MBB recruiting is more selective than BB IB recruiting, and I had never heard of WashU as being a MBB target. I stand corrected if they are a MBB target now, but that would make WashU the only MBB target that isn’t at least a traditional BB IB semi-target (and maybe that has changed as well? If so, it would have to be a very recent change).</p>