What in Tarnation is going on

<p>Wash U has a lot of apps because they tend to give out a lot of aid. The app pool isn't nearly as strong as NU's; after all, NU has its own app, while WU uses common app, invitign many many more applications. Also, the reason WU has been waitlisting students who get into NU is not because it is harder / better. They accept students with less wualifications and waitlist those with more, because they think / know that many who should get in wont matriculate to WU; its in a bad location, to name one drawback. WU's waitlist this year contains a huge # of very smart students; they figure that, if these students really do want to go to WU, they will request to stay on the wait list, instead of just saying "**** this," which most will do because they get into better schools. Doing this provides a way for them to be able to claim that they reject the best students, while also allowing these good students to stay on the wait list and probably matriculate iff they do really want to go.</p>

<p>O well, its really all luck, I got into Dartmouth, Caltech, and Cornell, but waitlisted at NU. And Dartmouth and CIT only have acceptance rates in the 15-18% range. It happens...</p>

<p>This is the kind of stuff that makes people realize how random college admissions is. I know a guy who was rejected from Stanford but accepted at Harvard... not totally surprsing but still... admissions is fairly random. If they think you'd add spice to the student body you might get accepted over the 4.0 1600 guy who's app is stacked on top of yours. It's not insane that this all happened.. you just need to realize that admissions can be crazy sometimes.</p>

<p>I'm joining the college-admission-is-a-crapshoot chorus.</p>

<p>Let me tell you a short story about MIT. I have many many friends applying there (all Bulgarians -- it's quite a popular place to apply to for us :]); several of them have worked very hard for the last couple of years only to get in, and some have barely moved to prepare for SATs, TOEFLs, essays, documents and what not else. Several stand out -- for their unique accomplishments in various fields; I won't name more than the three muptiple IOM (international olympiad in mathematics) gold-medalists, the two RSI best-fivers, and the three IOI (international olympiad in informatics = comp. sci.) gold- and silver-medalists. </p>

<p>Great guys, with more than decent stats, students who have proved their ability and will to study hard, but... all boys.
And guess who got the three Bulgarian places in MIT? (because, though they deny, they DO have such a quota for our country) The Bulgarian student at RSI 2004: truly deserved admission; the winner of the Balkan Olympiad in Informatics 2004 and winner of a golden medal at IOI 2004: a person of incredible engineering potential, truly deserved admission; and a girl with no solid accomplishments except for a fine SAT I, which MIT does not even require from internationals: yep, a girl. Despite not being her close friend, I know that girl, and can certainly say that she does not deserve to be ranked higher than most of the rejected Bulgarians. Now, this is definitely not fair. However, it confirms another fact commonly denied by admission officers: at highly competitive tech schools, such as MIT and Caltech, girls do have much better chances of getting in.</p>

<p>We can add this to the list entitled "Why college admission sucks." Sometimes, you can get rejected only because many other ppl apply from your school/region/city. Maybe because many have been admitted ED/EA. Numerous things make college admission so unfair and random that you can only counteract by applying to many schools. This should eliminate most of the negative agents involved and get you into a college that makes you happy. </p>

<p>I guess it worked for you, Easy. I applied to 14 schools, and since I got into NU, it did for me :)</p>

<p>BTW, has anyone noticed how fun it is pronouncing "Wash U?" I guess the last days have been quite hilarious at the university's CC board, where every once in a while someone has been joyfully claiming that he/she is going to wash the rest...</p>

<p>"Yayyyyy! I am going to Wash youuuu!"</p>

<p>lol. </p>

<p>college admissions = half chance and luck. if you have your heart set on the school, appeal.. if not, then oh well, it wasn't meant to be. it's not like you don't have a college to go to next year... you could always transfer in the future if you really WANT to...</p>

<p>by the way.. this is from the princetonreview.. i'm assuming these are last year's numbers.. things could be drastically different this year.</p>

<p>northwestern:
Freshman Admission Statistics
Total applicants who are accepted: 33%
Total of accepted students who enroll: 41% </p>

<p>wash u:
Freshman Admission Statistics
Total applicants who are accepted: 22%
Total of accepted students who enroll: 33%</p>

<p>wildcat makes a really good point. =)</p>

<p>I don't entirely agree with what you said about how "girls do have much better chances of getting in," but since this is a topic already beaten to death in MIT circles ;), I'm not going to get into it.</p>

<p>Haha, actually.. I've never really noticed the "wash u" pronounciation until you mentioned it. Lol, now I'm going to notice everytime someone says it.</p>

<p>lorddragon: this is not really relevant to the situation you're talking about, but I did speak with a UPenn representative who visited our school and said the most competitive applicants were those from Bulgaria. She kept going on and on about how they had these insane achievements and scores and she enjoyed reading their applications the most out of any other applicant. Just thought it was interesting...</p>

<p>Yep... The battle has been merciless this year. Nice of you to share this -- if any of my friends applying to the States does not make it anywhere, I'll direct them to your post :). I'm currently a senior, so this is my first time applying, and I can't compare the competition with last season's, but it has definitely been a <em>merciless</em> year.</p>