Pre-law and pre-med (or being in a major heavily populated by students with these goals) is typically self-imposed competitive stressfulness.
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That’s precisely my point. If someone is making that argument that an ED designation doesn’t indicate first choice or that your first choice from among the schools that one actually applies to aren’t really the true first choice because your dream was omitted altogether for strategic reasons, then you’ve gone down the rabbit hole and you need to throw it all out. Choice is only a choice if you take the steps to make it an option and you prioritize it accordingly.
If I’m looking at a list of options for vacation, my dream may be to go to Australia. But if I’m not even pursuing it on a list of 8 options, it’s not even a choice. So it can’t be my “top choice”. Similarly, if Paris is the most appealing destination on my list, but I decide I’m going to look to see if I can get a good deal done easily for San Francisco, then Paris isn’t my top/first choice either. San Francisco is.
I’m an alumn but I try to call balls and strikes here in a reasonable way. WashU clearly is a lower affinity/primary choice school than many of its peers. That’s why I posted an analysis of an applicant census upthread. Among a large pool of very competitive applicants Cornell, UMich, UCBerkeley, USC, Rice, Vandy, Emory and CMU isn’t awful company.
Thanks for filling out that picture. In all honesty those anecdotes don’t track too much with my experience as a 2014 alum, but there are all types of experiences at all types of schools. All my WashU friends who went to law school were super engaged in their classes, not just gunning for a grade, and all got involved in cool non-academic activities – and many made it to T15 law schools or got big scholarships at state schools. Same with the environmental science folks and those who went the PhD route.
WashU definitely still has a lot of wealthy kids, but many people don’t know that the percent of Pell-eligible undergrads has more than doubled since 2013 (6% to 14%, IIRC, which is similar to peer schools). Of course there can always be more equitable opportunity, just pointing out recent changes – and even years ago, I had friends who were on significant financial aid, had work study jobs, etc.
As far as racial diversity, WashU’s freshman class is fairly similar to other peer schools – 46% white, 26% Asian, 11% Hispanic, 9% Black, 6% Int’l, 1% Native American or Hawaiian. Pretty good geographic diversity in terms of regions of the country.
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I assume that the 6.6% ED for Wash U is a typo? When I look at the most recent CDS on their website, I see 772 ED applicants, which is 16.4% of the 31,320 total applicants which they report on their CDS.
Here’s an article on yield rates this year, which was an unusual year because of the soaring number of applications to top colleges, which certainly had an effect on yield as well as on admit rates.
In the sample here, Wash U is well above Wesleyan and close behind Amherst and Swarthmore.
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772 is the number admitted ED, not applied. It lists 1840 applied ED and 772 admitted. It lists 13,312 + 14,637 = 27,949 applied in total.
1840 / 27,949 = 6.6%
I’m not trying to debate here. I’m trying to clarify something that is objectively untrue. It is simple math.
This only site/public information using your assertion of 770 crimes on campus is linked below.
Second paragraph 770 crimes. First pie chart, shows 81.8% of those incidents are disciplinary actions. All you really need to understand are what disciplinary actions are and where the sex crimes are located on the pie chart. The same source says Disciplinary actions are “related to possession of contraband such as alcohol, drugs or, weapons.” If 80% of all on-campus WashU incidents across all WashU campuses and incidents involving WashU students/employees in adjacent areas are for something other than sex crimes…then 50% or 80% of whatever events aren’t sexual assault. If anyone thinks otherwise, they’re not debating me or anyone else. They’re debating math.
Below is a link to the source data. This data is for the Danforth campus only. It excludes the medical school and Tyson research center, so it represents a subset of that 770. Danforth is where all students other than medical students are located. This is where undergrads live and study.
571 + 50 alcohol and drug disciplinary incidents. Those are the two primary disciplinary actions in the pie chart. These incidents are cops writing someone up for violating substance policies such as hard alcohol at events. No one is being reported or prosecuted for those incidents although depending upon the frequency, offenders may be required to undergo a substance abuse course. Two reasons there are so many:
- it’s an enforcement decision and 2) Fraternities are on campus grounds in houses owned by the university. It is very easy to write up 100 people at one party that runs afoul of the rules.
80.65% of incidents across the entire university are dump out your booze/flush your weed on the Danforth Campus. So it’s mathematically impossible that WashU is investigating 385+ sexual assaults/rapes a year. This would make the campus the “rapiest” campus in the country. This is the number implied by the statement that more than half of those 770 incidents are sex crimes.
There were 11 cases of rape and fondling in 2019. More in years prior. Those are all included in serious crimes and are in the national campus crime clearinghouse database, located here:
https://ope.ed.gov/campussafety/#/
As it compares to the usual 25 or so large, private university usual suspects (T30ish), WashU has averaged fewer sex crimes/female student than average. They have also averaged fewer property crimes (burglary and motor vehicle theft) than average. The robbery/aggravated assault rate 2.13 per year per 10,000 students for that peer group over the last 3 years. WashU’s rate rate is slighly higher there: 2.89 incidents per 10,000 students per year on average from 2017-19.
There are also VAWA incidents listed: domestic abuse and stalking.
Again, I am not trying to debate anyone here. People come here to get information as part of what may be a $300,000+ expense. It’s one thing for all of us to stick to our guns regarding opinions. We owe everyone transparency and accuracy when it comes to actual facts.
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No, 2020-21 is enrollment data for the 2020-21 collegiate year, so high school class of 2020 for admissions. We won’t know enrollment figures for HS class of 2021 until this fall, which goes on next year’s CDS released in June 2022. If you’re trying to figure out yield, that isn’t a great year due to all of the uncertainty, gap years, etc with Covid. My numbers aren’t quite tracking with these.
Total apps - ED apps = RD apps
Total admits - ED admits = RD admits
Total enroll - ED admits x 0.97 = RD enroll
Multiplying ED admits by 0.97 is a reasonable estimate for # of EDs who actually attend. A few drop for financial reasons. Most schools don’t show ED enroll, but those that do typically get about 97%.
RD enroll / RD admits is RD yield. But…some schools go to a waitlist. Those are conditional admits. Agree to accept and we admit you. And they only go there if they don’t hit their pre-waitlist RD yield targets in the first place. It’s a bit cleaner to subtract admitted from WL from both RD enroll and RD admits.
Example using last pre-Covid CDS (2019-20):
Cornell 9.16% RD acceptance, 46.4% yield. Adj for WL: 8.8% Adm, 44.6% yield. Basically, Cornell accepted too few people RD, so they had to go find some folks to lure, accept.
Some RD removing WL yields from that year:
Cornell 44.6%
Northwestern 35.2%
Duke 33.2%
Rice 29.1%
WashU 23.2%
Vandy 15.2%
Waitlists keep acceptance rates low, but they also obscure the yields. It shows you how dicey it is for even a Duke. That year, they only got 1 in 3 RD admits before going to their wait list.
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“Possession of weapons” certainly sounds like harmless fun. But feel free to go on and on (and on). I’m sure everyone here is as fascinates by all this as I am.
Whoa look at Vanderbilt’s RD yield! That explains why the ED kids from our high school get in and the RD kids always waitlisted.
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Seems like every year, selective schools fill their class more and more from ED. Helps them better predict yield rates and class management. Certainly makes it much more competitive for RD applicants.
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I understand colleges’ desire and need to be able to manage their yields. However, filling more and more of their classes with ED applicants defeats the whole purpose of competitive but fair admissions. Maybe it’s about time to limit the number of colleges that a student can apply to.
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I’ve been told that hardly anyone from our large, competitive high school gets into Cornell, Northwestern, Vandy, or WashU RD. The ED rates are much higher/likely. It puts a heavy weight on the ED decision!
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For significant number of selective colleges, many applicants’ choices of schools are effectively reduced to two: the ED school and the ED2 school.
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The data in the Clery report shows that the overwhelming number of incidents at Wash U – over 600 a year – are drug and alcohol related. There was 1 illegal weapons arrest in 2019, 3 in 2018 – with 1 of those being on public, not university property – and 0 in 2017. The geography covered in the Clery report is not just the Danforth campus but includes all University grounds and off-campus properties within one mile of campus which are owned or affiliated with the University, such as off-campus housing affiliated with the university. So if someone shows up to an off-campus party, that’s counted in the data.
For comparison, Emory University – in a leafy, suburban area of Atlanta, had 1 illegal weapons arrest in 2019, 0 in 2018, and 1 in 2017 – pretty similar to Wash U. Harvard’s Cambridge campus had 0 in 2019, 1 in 2018 and 2 in 2017, again, pretty similar weapons-related incidents.
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I agree with this. Over reliance on ED to fill classes also disproportionately favors wealthier students who won’t need to compare financial aid offers. It’s especially disappointing that so many top schools have gone this route when they have such enormous applicant pools from which to select and little fear of not filling their classes with great students.
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I agree- very disappointing. The middle class (and upper-middle class who may want to compare merit options) are really prevented from applying with this option.
Wash U is very well known at our private Northeast very academic high school and is often included in the list for kids also shooting for the Ivies. So not at all a secret here! Having said that, being in a red state is certainly a big negative now and we won’t be applying for my youngest - my oldest applied and got in but didn’t visit or consider seriously once his other admits came in, my middle visited but didn’t apply, and my youngest won’t be applying to Red state schools including WashU - I am sure they will have plenty of other applicants though and I think their profile has risen a lot in last decade.
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Vandy uses a more aggressive strategy than most. Very high percentage of slots filled ED. For RD, they tend to lean more heavily on metrics than overall fit. So it is easier to predict admission, but that also means those that gain admission RD are generally less likely to choose them than their counterparts at similar schools.
They’re willing to keep those numerical standards and low RD admit rate at the expense of having to dig through their WL on average far more.
If you don’t separate out the WL from straight admit RD, their yield looks much better…because it’s not uncommon for them to fill about half of their RD enrollment via waitlist, where they go 300 enrolled for 300 admits.
I don’t necessarily think this is bad or good. It wouldn’t be good if every school followed this model. But it’s something to consider with them when applying. ED is a very good option, but RD stretches out due to WL activity.
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Vandy’s strategy is complicated all the more by the timing of their scholarship apps - December 1, inconveniently in between ED and RD. So either you apply ED (in which case, they can admit you and not consider you for the scholarship, AND you forego other schools’ ED), or you go ED2 or RD, but get your app in by December 1. That’s a good way for them to gauge how serious of an applicant you are.
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Our selective STEM program kids from a public HS very close to TN can get into HYPM, Columbia, UPenn, Duke, etc. every year, but rarely can get into Vandy. Several wealthy kids not in our program can easily get into Vandy with full pay every year. That tells you how Vandy picks its students.