I am really interested in Washington University in St. Louis, and I was wondering if test scores are really weighted heavily in admissions (what about their USPM program)? Here on CC, that seems to be the notion. Are grades also heavily weighted as well?
I know, I know, grades and test scores are not everything, but I just wanted to know (because they still play a significant role in admissions).
Any advice is appreciated. Thanks in advance!
The Common Data Set, section C7, shows that test scores are considered “very important”.
https://wustl.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/wustl-cds-2017-2018.pdf
@BrownPLME : I feel as if you can just sort extrapolate by comparing WUSTL scores to those of schools ranked the same and maybe +/- 5 from it in USNWR…and even some top 10s. The scores are higher than a lot (maybe even all/most) of those places, which would be considered of similar caliber. Plus, yes, their CDS suggests that they like weighting/cherrypicking the absolute highest scores possible (it is obvious that not all elites and super elites do this…though all they want what are considered very high scores versus the national average. Some schools seem less “score centric” in their selection process than others. For example, generally, pre-new SAT, Duke, Penn, and Stanford are top 10s that clearly choose to have a less score centric admissions process than WUSTL).
At this point, I would say that if you plan to apply to any of the medium/smaller top private schools (say anywhere in the top 30), have a very high score if you can (which is now pretty much 1500+ at all/most of them).
My son’s scores were not that high, but his grades and AP scores were. If you are really interested, show interest because that helps with admissions. And it never hurts to try – you might have something special that makes you stand out.
University Scholars Program in Medicine at WashU is extremely competitive. Only 15-20 are selected in each cohort.
From your previous posts, you mentioned a sophomore slump in your grades. The candidates for USPM are usually 4.0 unweighted GPA with SAT scores around 1500+. So it’s going to be a high reach.
Bottom line: of course, scores and grades are very important and a program like USPM is going to choose among their best candidates. Info about selectivity, expectations, stats, etc, is on their web site. If you want to aim for a highly selective college, know as much as you can about your match, from what the college says and shows. Have that drive.
USPM is basically pointless. You have a guaranteed admissions to the med school contingent upon getting at least a 3.80 every semester, scoring a 36+ on the MCAT (97th percentile and certainly not an easy thing to do), and doing an interview. If you have those stats and simply explore your interests in college through some ECs you are bound to get into a good med school.
A person my year who got into USPM didnt even end up going to washu lol he ended up going to johns hopkins.