<p>I thought this analysis by poster Keepitcoolidge, about why some people insist on bashing WashU's high ranking as a national university in US News, was particularly insightful.</p>
<p>"1) it seems, purely from observation, that nay-sayers <em>often</em> tend to be a) students that didn't get in; 2) parents of students that didn't get in; 3) students at other similar colleges that love being a part of the establishmentarian Ivy Leage, thinking that any school that has forward momentum is somehow gaming the system.</p>
<p>2) If you look at the link someone posted about the historical USNews rankings, Wash U really hasn't moved a whole lot since like 2002. It seems that 9th is the highest they've gone one year, but they've been hovering around 11 and 12 for the better part of a decade now. A decade at relatively the same places? And people keep talking about Wash U climbing higher and higher and somehow gaming it? </p>
<p>3) Wash U has a higher average SAT and ACT score than many of its competitor schools.[For example, the National Merit Scholarship Foundation statistics show that WashU is the private university with the second most number of National Merit Scholars] It's impossible for them to "wait list top applicants" and still maintain amongst the highest test scores in the country. Sure, Wash U might wait list top applicants, but it also ACCEPTS top applicants. MIT and Cal Tech are probably two schools that have higher test scores than Wash U, and those schools probably don't steal many applicants from Wash U. Of course, we all know that test scores are the only measure of intelligence and likely success. </p>
<p>4) Selectivity and acceptance percentage are such a small portion of a US News ranking, that a school's selectivity has to change SIGNIFICANTLY for it to have a material difference in the ranking change from year to year. The actual acceptance rate (yield is no longer included in rankings methologies) makes up something like 1.5% of the aggregate ranking of college. </p>
<p>5) Waitlisting helps colleges even out their freshman class. Wash U has 5 or 6 undergraduate schools, each with their own enrollment numbers. Most colleges like Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, etc... have ONE or TWO undergraduate schools -- they only admit one or two freshman classes. Wash U has to do this for 5 or 6 classes! How difficult it must be to coordinate ideal and actual enrollment numbers WITHOUT using a wait list to even things out.</p>
<p>6) Last year (or was it two years ago?) Harvard accepted 200 people from their Wait List. Penn and other Ivies were around 100 - 200. Why does Wash U take the flack for it?? </p>
<p>7) Wash U received about 23,000 applications last year. Let's say they admitted exactly 4000 people for an acceptance rate of 17.4%. Given their freshman class size, that's a yield of about 35%. Somewhat low, but Northwestern, Emory, and UChicago have similar yields. Let's say of those 4000 accepted people, 150 of them were accepted from the wait list. Accepting people from a wait-list helps to even out a freshman class. Waitlist-accepted people are more likely to say "yes" than a typical Regular Decision accepted kid. For ease of argument, let's say ALL of the 150 wait list acceptances said "yes" to Wash U. </p>
<p>NOW... let's say that those 150 people weren't accepted from the wait list. Instead, Wash U didn't use a wait list... and as a result they needed to accept 4450 (4000 + 150/onethird) people to get to the same freshman class size. That increases their overall acceptance rate to 19.3%. Which is only 1.5% higher than if they did use the wait list to accept people. </p>
<p>Clearly this does NOT make a significant difference in statistics, rankings, etc... especially considering that the acceptance rate amounts to 1.5% of the overall college ranking. So, here we're basically talking about 1.5% of 1.5%. </p>
<p>8) I highly doubt that Wash U spends the time required it would take to: calculate "demonstrated interest," think if an applicant is "ivy material," or calculate the likelihood that someone from a given high school would go to Wash U if accepted. It would take an inordinate degree of time for how many applications they get. Ultimately it's all guesswork and basically unfair if a school did all this "strategic" work. Perhaps I'm naive, but I believe that schools looks at a kid on his or her merits, not guess his or her intentions of going elsewhere. The kid applied to Wash U, he or she obviously has some degree of interest already just by applying. </p>
<p>9) Wash U IS accepting kids who are "ivy material" -- that's why their yield is so low! Kids who they accept are choosing the ivies instead of Wash U. It's the sad state of a name-brand and bumper-sticker culture.</p>
<p>The most preferred college in the market is, usually, the school that attracts the most of the same type of kid on academic metrics (high rank in class, high test scores, etc). The school becomes more popular as simply another check-box on the Common Application for kids to apply to. IMHO, it's honestly sad how generic this all is. I'm a firm believer of attending a school that YOU can change, not go to a school that you expect should change you. Contribute to a community and help that community move forward, don't expect for a community to contribute to your well-being by coasting off reputations. Go to an off-the-beaten-path smart-kid school.. like the UChicagos, the Rices, the Wash Us, the Emorys. Whenever you start looking at top-tier schools like the ones listed above, you're not going to notice any material difference in the quality of your undergraduate education. There's only so many ways you're going to learn Biology or Poli Sci or English or Math or Physics in undergrad. Look at other variables that determine why you should go to a certain school. </p>
<p>I applaud a school like Wash U that has become more prominent and thinks about forward momentum. Why is it a bad thing to become more nationally prominent? Why do people suspect ulterior motives? </p>
<p>Keep in mind that popularity for a school amongst 17-year-olds is NO indication of their quality. Schools like UChicago, Wash U, and Rice are extreme victims of academic prestige =/= social prestige. If you remove "Peer Assessment" from the US News rankings (there is a link floating around the CC forums for this) and rank schools purely on quantifiable metrics --- faculty resources, financial resources, graduation rates, test scores, etc --- you get a different picture. Wash U, Duke, and Brown go WAY up, while other schools (namely Cornell, Stanford and Hopkins) experience a couple of points drop. </p>
<p>This can be debated endlessly, and I do not want to start any sort of discussion on the validity of removing peer assessment or even the validity of US News rankings themselves. I'm sure we can all agree that some of the things US News measures (faculty resources, financial resources graduation rates, test scores, etc) are at least somewhat important measures in determining school quality to some degree. Debate comes in into the WEIGHTS they put on certain metrics, including weights for peer assessment. </p>
<p>People hear "ivy league" and they automatically think it's an amazing school. People say "I've heard XXX is a good school", but they can't tell you one oustanding program, anything about the curriculum, prominent faculty, important discoveries, what activities students do, etc. Some friend might have said "XXX is a good school" and that's how some other guy heard about a school. It's all about word of mouth, and what's sad about colleges is that for most of America, a NAME is all they know... nothing more than a name. For people "in the know", ie top company recruiters, grad schools, etc, they know which schools are really great, which schools consistently produce top performers, and which schools have great professors and WHY in certain fields. "</p>
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