Yes, I believe there are some issues with the USNWR list. A list of colleges with highest SAT/ACT scores is below using the latest IPEDS. I weighted SAT/ACT based on the percentages taking the respective exam. For example, WUSTL appears to have slightly higher SAT than HYP and same ACT as HYP, yet HYP ranks slightly higher. This relates to WUSTL having a much larger portion taking ACT than HYP, and the ACT score having a lower SAT concordance than the SAT scores. As noted, WUSTL does have very high test score averages.
What has to be factored into yield rates for any college in recent years is the increasing number of colleges to which students are applying. Every T20 college can be considered a back up to HYPSM. We have been seeing acceptance rates that were literally unheard of 20+ years ago: 3-5%!!! Many at 5-10%!!!
Wash U draws 20% of its students from the tri-state area. I’ll bet that for a lot of those students it is a back up. But it draws another 20% from Illinois/Missouri. I’m guessing that for most of those students, it’s not a back up. The other 60% are drawn from all over the country with no single state other than California reaching more than 5%. From that pool there are probably varying preferences with both first choice and back ups for a variety of reasons including finances.
I don’t see how any college can be labeled “back up” when it consistently gets a yield in the 40s as Wash U has done in recent years. For how many who did not attend was it their first choice but they went elsewhere for financial reasons? Kids are aiming high these days. Any kid who gets into 5 T20 schools is rejecting 80% of their T20s. I guess the othe 4 were all back ups. That leaves very few schools that could be considered first choice except for HYPSM and State U for financial reasons.
40% yield might be because many of those students were not admitted to their first choice or top choices schools. All that we know for sure is that WashUStL was the first choice school for students who applied ED.
Maybe I should have written that WashUStL was not a first choice school for many applicants rather than using the label “back-up school”.
Is that necessarily true? For at least some of those students who applied ED, they may have applied because they believed ED would give them better probability of admissions (than EA or ED to another school), not necessarily because the school was their first choice.
Agree that that may be an application strategy used by ED applicants. Nevertheless, applying ED effectively makes the ED school that applicant’s first choice school.
I think Wash U differentiates itself by having stellar academics but also by not having a very fun atmosphere. We know a number of kids there. All serious students. They would all say it’s not a fun place. No one cheers on the sports. No Greek life. It’s just not a super social environment. I will say that the dorms are really nice!
I just started reading this thread because I have a young family member who’s guidance counselor was pushing WashU. They visited last month just to walk around campus (no official tours yet when they were there). Said it was beautiful but they didn’t love STL. They came away not loving it as much as some of the other schools they saw but it’s still on the list.
I appreciate everyone’s candor.
FWIW, back to the original post, I also don’t think WashU is a secret - it’s a very popular choice where I live now and used to live. We actually heard an NU student yesterday talking to a friend that WashU was his first choice but he was rejected.
I don’t have time right now to get into the details, but I now know where you are getting your info. The 770 figure includes “disciplinary actions” which is shorthand for campus PD asking people to dump alcoholic beverages/weed, trespass warnings because someone thinks it’s funny to run through closed buildings at night after 4 too many beers, etc. That is 81.8% of all reported campus-related “crime” in that 770 and >85% of all on campus crime, which is most of that 770.
WashU started cracking down on some aspects of drug/alcohol consumption in an effort to reduce the probability of incidents of sexual assault. Most campuses do not record such violations that do not lead to arrest. Your source here:
Look at the chart with “disciplinary actions”.
The other thing to understand is that the link above includes crime on all campuses/facilities. As the spouse of an ICU/ER physician at a large health center, I can tell you that there are a lot of assaults that occur on healthcare grounds (typically domestic between dysfunctional family members of patients).
What you really need to be looking at on main campus incidents + incidents in adjacent areas involving campus-related individuals (alleged perpetrator and victim alike) without those disciplinary actions, which are recorded and enforced with great inconsistency across college campuses.
Please note the other items (sexual violence, robbery, burglary, etc) are often recorded with great inconsistency across campus PDs. WashU records incidents that occur in the Delmar Loop involving students but similar events often go unrecorded at other schools because “geographically adjacent” is somewhat subjective.
I’ll dig for the government clearinghouse crime data that had been normalized later, but the crime rates at WashU are pretty similar to those at peer schools.
My choices a long time ago came down to NU vs WashU. NU was my school crush for the entire process and I visited Evanston first. After two days at WashU, it was an easy choice for me personally to attend WashU. That cuts against the grain a bit, but there are many people who make that choice, just as there are many people admitted to NU and rejected by WashU…although the reverse is more common.
That’s true. But using the same logic, Harvard could be the first choice of tens of thousands of people who only apply
RD and don’t bother applying there.
ED is a good measure of stated preference. Especially ED1. Even if the ED selection was strategic. Similarly, people can’t really state Harvard was their first choice if they omit it from a school list for strategic reasons.
Don’t bother. I have no interest in debating this with you further. I stand by my initial post. 770 crimes reported, with sexual assault the most reported.
That isn’t the same logic (what you stated is the inverse or converse of the logic). All I said was that not all students who applied ED to a school because that school was their “first choice”. I never said anything about students who didn’t apply ED (or EA) to a school even though that school may still be their “first choice”.
By using the same logic, can’t we say that HYPSM, Amherst, Williams, Cal Tech is almost everyone’s first choice whether they apply there or not? They only apply elsewhere because they know they can’t get in to begin with. ( I’m exaggerating but not by much, Norte Dame devotees excluded.)
Funny thing is that when PR surveyed the students, Wash U ranked #7 on Quality of Life, which includes friendliness of students. IDK how they’re finding each other friendly if they’re not socializing. A lot of their social life is built around the dorms, not too dissimilar from Yale, Harvard, Rice.
We know three Wash U young alums who say it’s a very stressful and not fun. I guess I’m comparing to what I hear from places like CMU or Johns Hopkins. One of them told us she planned out when she would cry to release the stress. The other two have connections to the school through their parents (one is an alum and the other works there) and they told us to stay far away. Just anecdotes I guess, but they are consistent. We also know two kids who transferred out.
Kids interested in Wash U should visit and talk to as many students as they can to check for fit, not unlike a lot of schools.
