What is it about WUSTL?

<p>I've heard a lot of things on CC about how annoying WUSTL's admissions' process is, and how they do it. From what I gather they use the waitlist very heavily...can anyone give me some insight? I was planning to apply, then decided I shouldn't, then my parents convinced me to because it's close.</p>

<p>They are just known to game the system significantly more than other schools…waitlisting candidates with very high stats (who they think will get into and attend better schools) in order to boost their yield, accepting people purely for their SAT scores to drive up the average, sending out horrific amounts of mail to anybody who ends up on their mailing list, things of that nature. This gives off a rather distasteful perception that they are messing around with the lives of young people in order to move up a few spots in the rankings.</p>

<p>the idea of waitlisting candidates with extra high stats is known as “tufts syndrome” but honestly any school can be accused of it, except it’s overlooked with schools like HYPSM. </p>

<p>something ironic about the waitlist, besides the “extraordinary” candidates, WashU still of course waitlists students who deserve to be waitlisted but still complain about “tufts syndrome”, but this year WashU pulled a handful of the waitlist and nothing more, so despite this “ridiculously long” waitlist, the # of people who actually get off still remains very, very low.</p>

<p>My impression is the same with Emory. They both want to “rise the ladder” rather than truly help the students.</p>

<p>This is of course horribly biased but it is still my impression.</p>

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<p>It’s not WUSTL’s admissions process that’s annoying — it’s the insecure people on College Confidential who are annoying.</p>

<p>It never ceases to amaze me how people write this stuff over and over again, year after year, in thread after thread, yet nobody has posted a link which shows the number of waitlisted students, and the number pulled off the waitlist.</p>

<p>If you write “the world is flat” enough times, people will believe it.</p>

<p>As far as the abundance of mail goes, it’s usually written by insecure people who want to show the CC world how truly “wanted” they are.</p>

<p>The amount of mail from WUSTL that came to my house was easily surpassed by that from Columbia and Bates, to name just a couple. But what does it even matter?</p>

<p>If you’re not interested, ignore it. If you’re interested, peruse it. If you’re insecure, go on Jerry Springer.</p>

<p>“They are just known to game the system significantly more than other schools…waitlisting candidates with very high stats (who they think will get into and attend better schools) in order to boost their yield”</p>

<p>There is still no evidence supporting that statement.
If they did play such game, why was the yield of the school still similar to the one of Northwestern’s?!
Also, are you saying that those students who got into H,Y,P,S,or M and WUSTL, werent actually qualified to get into HYPSM as apparently WUSTL only accepted students who werent smart enough to get into HYPSM?!</p>

<p>“the idea of waitlisting candidates with extra high stats is known as “tufts syndrome” but honestly any school can be accused of it, except it’s overlooked with schools like HYPSM.”</p>

<p>The “revealed preference” article by Avery et al documented the phenomenon at Princeton, so it is not overlooked when done by HYPSM schools. </p>

<p>“something ironic about the waitlist, besides the “extraordinary” candidates, WashU still of course waitlists students who deserve to be waitlisted but still complain about “tufts syndrome”, but this year WashU pulled a handful of the waitlist and nothing more, so despite this “ridiculously long” waitlist, the # of people who actually get off still remains very, very low.”</p>

<p>It is not completely clear what this stream of consciousness means, but I believe that it does not contradict the OP’s premise. The more strong candidates that you waitlist, the weaker is the pool of initial admits, and the higher will be your yield from the intial offers. For a given number of intial offers, you will get more acceptances and use the waitlist less if you engage in this kind of strategic behavior. Whether WUSTL does this I do not know, nor, I imagine, do you.</p>

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My complaint is that, despite its large endowment, WUStL is virtually the only top university that’s not need-blind. </p>

<p>Vanderbilt has the same number of students as WUStL and has a smaller endowment – yet is need-blind and even went loan-free for all students.</p>

<p>Its a fabulous school. A gorgeous campus in trendy uptown St. Louis, adjacent to a huge park. Some phenomenal programs there. No core or gen ed requirements, which allows kids to double and triple major (something they all brag about when you walk on campus). The admissions people are warm and are very inclusive. Its a liberal school…some would say a tad bohemian. Huge dorms. I liked it a lot. BUT…the bad and ugly side of WUSTL is that they are too conscious about status and rankings and have for the last 10 years or so gamed the USNWR system by sending out glossy admissions materials to anyone and everyone giving them a FALSE impression they are wanted there…when in fact its all about getting massive applications (and fees) and having a HUGE waitlist, making them appear to be highly selective. It worked. Their avg SAT scores and gpas skyrocketed as did their USNWR ranking. The other thing is I found the students all hyperactive, stressed and on the verge of a nervous breakdown…I mean EVERYONE we spoke with on campus were jacked up on caffeine, talking way too fast, obsessed with “triple majors” and going to an Ivy MBA program or Law School or Med School. A very big turnoff. My kid was waitlisted and so it ended there. </p>

<p>BUT, we liked the school and the programs and the professors we talked to. They went after my kid to transfer INTO WashU her sophomore year in a huge way…but she is happy where she is (doing extremely well) and had “gotten over” the WashU obsession. </p>

<p>If you go there, good luck. Its a fine school.</p>

<p>Washington? Isn’t that in Seattle? ;-)</p>

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<p>[Test</a> Prep: GMAT, GRE, LSAT, MCAT, SAT, ACT, and More](<a href=“Colleges with Great Financial Aid | The Princeton Review”>Colleges with Great Financial Aid | The Princeton Review)</p>

<p>as much as i hate rankings, WashU is ranked 4th for great financial aid, after swarthmore, stanford, and harvard.</p>

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  1. The PR rankings are garbage, as I have posted before. The blatantly incorrect study abroad “ranking” is just one example.</p>

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<li>It’s very easy to offer good financial aid when you limit the amount of people who need it.</li>
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<p>and</p>

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<p>I’m assuming that you mean that high scorers are accepted at the expense of grades and activities, which just isn’t true. A few years ago, WUSTL was 4th in the number of National Merit Scholars. In order to advance to that stage, grades are examined, so if any of those high scorers had terrible grades, they wouldn’t have made it (not to mention that 95% of the class of 2011 was in the top 10%). And as far as activities go, somehow the band is filled every year, the athletic teams win national championships, and so on. </p>

<p>I am continually disappointed, though, by the superfluous use of the waitlist, especially considering its relative inactivity in past years. It’s a practice that doesn’t really make sense, despite the “gaming the rankings” argument. The acceptance rate accounts for 1.5% of the USNWR score, and some years a grand total of 0 kids are taken off of the list – why put thousands on it?</p>

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<p>I completely agree. The majority of students receive financial aid (60%), so I feel as though it’s mostly need-blind anyway (yes – I know what need-blind means. I mean that although the admissions office is aware of the need, they don’t weigh it heavily). The average aid package is $25,309, so it’s not like they’re only admitting kids who don’t require much. Why not make the switch to being fully need-blind? Even it is just a label, it would be a positive thing.</p>

<p>I don’t really know why so many on CC have such an issue with WUSTL. Some have an inexplicable bone to pick (phead), others once liked the school but didn’t get in (hookem), and the rest just seem content to pass along whatever incorrect information they’ve heard.</p>

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National Merit Scholars could easily be (almost) all accepted. WashU could also be reluctant to accept those outside of top 10%.
It is hard to believe that any of its so called “peers” based solely on USNWR have a less qualified applicant pool and are forced to accepted some of those who not in top 10% of their class or have less National Merit Scholars to accept.</p>

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<p>Sure acceptance rate is only 1.5% of the score, but a (gamed) decreased acceptance rate increase selectivity artificially. Can you provide me with some source about 0 kids being taken off the waiting list?</p>

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<p>If you feel that WashU is mostly need-blind, it MUST be mostly need-blind. If the admission is unable and/or unwilling to declare WashU need-blind, then it is NOT need-blind.</p>

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<p>FYI, I didn’t apply to WashU. I live in a state near Missouri; I have first hand experiences with WashU’s practices (Tufts syndrome [Princeton, MIT but not WashU], massive waitlist [Everyone I know either got in or got waitlisted], and spam mail [Practically everyone in top 10% of my class got mail from WashU on a monthly basis]). Reading all the stories on CC doesn’t help either.</p>

<p>At least WUSTL is honest enough to admit that it is not fully need-blind. If you think all the schools that say they are need blind really are, think again. At most there are a handful (maybe 10) of universities and LACs in this country that are 100% need blind.</p>

<p>Dear WUSTL, </p>

<p>Please stop killing me!</p>

<p>Sincerely,
A Tree</p>

<p>Conclusive proof that WUSTL doesn’t game admissions:</p>

<p>The person with the highest IQ in the world, Marilyn vos Savant, attended Wash U, although she dropped out later. If WashU games admissions, why would they admit Marilyn, who obviously was supremely and uniquely qualified for admission at all top schools?</p>

<p>I especially love how the WUSTL homers in this and other threads continue to deny the obvious against overwhelming anecdotal evidence. Like Roger Clemens, they seem to think that righteous indignation substitutes for sound argument. </p>

<p>WUSTL homer responses are so typical. They seem to consistently employ two strategies:</p>

<p>(1) “Bait and Switch”</p>

<p>When accused of the syndrome, WUSTL homers sometimes avoid addressing the argument and go on the offensive instead. They start accusing other schools of the syndrome so as to take the heat off themselves. But other schools don’t really have the syndrome, or at least not as badly. </p>

<p>The only top school that has been caught with it is Princeton (by the Revealed Preferences study). Unlike WUSTL, however, Princeton confessed and have professed to reform their practices. The other HYPSM schools were exonerated by the RP survey, but this doesn’t stop the WUSTL homers (e.g. nooob) from throwing stones at them anyway. </p>

<p>Now it is entirely possible that the lower ivies, Duke, Vanderbilt, etc. may have the syndrome too. But they really haven’t shown any consistent patterns in their practice the way WUSTL does.</p>

<p>(2) “Blame the victim”</p>

<p>Whenever waitlisted Ivy-bound WUSTL applicants cry foul about being unwitting pawns in the WUSTL admissions game, they are accused of being “insecure,” “presumptuous,” or whatever. No, they are merely expressing that they have been unfairly treated by WUSTL in the admissions process, that’s all. What else do you WUSTL homers expect them to do?</p>

<p>There are certain sound assumptions that can be made about what sort of criteria are used in college admissions. When these assumptions are violated for WUSTL applicants, naturally they would express disbelief.</p>

<p>Of course, it is WUSTL’s prerogative to use whatever criteria they want. But if yield protection is one of them, then they should spell this out for their applicants instead of being so disingenous. Obviously WUSTL won’t do the right thing because they would lose potential applicants, which would defeat the purpose of their questionable practices in the first place.</p>

<p>I love the idea of somebody hating WUSTL so much as to go through the trouble of tracking this problem and typing it up. I personally don’t hate WUSTL (though I do enjoy looking down upon it)</p>

<p>post #16 lol</p>