<p>maybe because it's missouri?</p>
<p>ST2 I would like to say thank you; I couldn't agree more.</p>
<p>To those who seem to be negative so they can warm the future applicants about WashU's problems I have a suggestion. Why don't you come back in a couple months, maybe after the common app for next year is out. Right now I bet most people who are reading this are either in, on the WL, or rejected; they have nothing to gain from your posts. </p>
<p>I'm really not super pleased with a lot of their decisions either but I know plenty of people who have the same experiences at Ivies and others. It seems to me that you are an individual who has a very bright future ahead, but that doesn't mean you need to rain on people's parades. Please try to have respect for those who were admitted - you seem to be disregarding all those who were admitted as rich kids who showed a little interest. I certainly think that you don't mean it that way. </p>
<p>Thanks and happy hunting with those schools, it's quite the impressive list.</p>
<p><em>runs away from so much trolling on washu boards</em></p>
<p>I've been reading some of hookem's posts and to be honest, this "I'm doing it for the future of our children" bit just doesn't have any merit. I am very sympathetic towards all who did not receive the decision they wanted and I understand college admissions are frustrating. I have a feeling that I will experience the kind of disappointment that many on the WL are feeling on March 31. At the same time, to those who went from absolutely loving WUSTL to abhorring it have no basis for their arguments because NO ONE (and I mean NO ONE) has any idea what the deciding factor for each applicant was. None of us are adcoms for WashU. None of us saw anyone's file other than our own, so none of us know why we were accepted/WLed/rejected. It's easy to point fingers at something like FA, but in the end, we just don't have any concrete proof of anything, and until something is released that says otherwise, no one has the right to accuse WashU of foul play.</p>
<p>Also, people who were WL/rejected have much more incentive to lie about their stats than those who were accepted. After all, you don't need much to sign up for CC, and its foolish to think that everything posted on here is truthful. Perhaps, hookem, the acceptance rate for WL WashU applicants to Ivies will be higher than that of accepted WashU applicants to Ivies, but I hope you have something more verifiable than a few posts from an online forum to back that up.</p>
<p>I'm sorry if this came off as an attack. Its really just a release of some of the frustration that I've felt in reading these threads. Please don't take this as an insult to any one person, but more as my opinion of a developing trend.</p>
<p>As Jazzymom pointed out WashU's yield is similar to a lot of it's peer institution, i.e. U Chicago, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Rice, Emory. One thing that I think people miss is that WashU has no supplementary application. Therefore many students probably apply there because if they don't mind paying the application fee, they might as well, even if they're not that interested. Ostensibly this would drive down WashU's acceptance rate and yield, but they accept more students because of a lower yield, so having no supplement might just mean more applications and more acceptances but not a major effect on percent accepted. WashU can't really tell during the decisions process who's very interested and who isn't, so they are bound to accept a lot of applicants who just applied there because of the relative ease of the application. In this context, and taking into account that U Chicago makes its applicants write three or so essays (I know because I'm one of them), and with those essays probably turns away many applicants that aren't particularly interested, their 36% yield looks pretty bad.</p>
<p>^ justpokingaround, you're right about the ease of the app! i was like sweeeeeeet this app is easy, though that wasn't the reason why i applied.</p>
<p>i don't think people should point their fingers at FA either, but i still think there's something off.</p>
<p>a family friend explained to me why she chose our state school (in MI) over washu. it was because she didn't get into the ivies, and didn't want to pay for washu since its regular fin aid does not compare to that of the top schools... and ultimately it was cheaper to go to the state flagship which was not that expensive for her. actually tons of my friends have that mentality --- if you're going to pay 25k, only go for the best.</p>
<p>I'm not bitter, I'm just stating the truth because whenever I tell people I got WL'd at WashU, they always think of the Washington state, so then I have to tell them the entire name for them to get it lol</p>
<p>yes, yalerose, but that mentality also implies that WashU is not part of "the best." That somewhat depends on your choice of X in "the top X schools," but I think Wash U fluctuating around 10th/11th the past few years indicated it is most assuredly among the best, and what prevents it from going higher is its lower yield. However, this is somewhat accounted for by the name recognition and ivy-league status of the Ivy League, and should change some in the future as WashU continues to gain increased recognition.</p>
<p>@ bay-area: that happens to me too! this is a typical conversation abt college w/ someone not applyin to any colleges:</p>
<p>adult: so have you gotten accepted anywhere?
me: yeah I got into washington university.
adult: washington university? as in washington state?
me: no, washington university in st. louis
adult: ah, yes that school (nods, but still looks confused. u can tell he has never even heard of it. )</p>
<p>where i'm from (texas), the only schools that ppl recognize are harvard, yale, stanford, duke, and rice. and the only reason ppl know rice is because its in texas.</p>
<p>My D had this dilemma last year. She loved Wash U but was a bit worried about the name recognition especially in California. She was accepted at Cornell, Georgetown , NW, UCLA, UC Berkeley , USC and a number of top 10 LAC. But she still liked Wash U the best so she went there. And she loves it there. But it is all personal after all it's only undegrad. BTW it is well known that if you want to go to HYPS for graduate degree you have a better chance of doing so if you do not get your undegrad degree there.
As far as the low yield goes the previous posters explained it: not need blind and being perceived as a backup choices for some Ivys.
I believe that Wash U is a rising star and will get more and more respect as time passes by. They have a lot of money that they can put to a good use and they do so by hiring away good people from other top universities.</p>
<p>bayarea and smiley,
The name recognition issue reminds me of that lunch I had with one of the executives at a large company. He asked me where my daughter was at and I said that she was at Wash U. I wanted to explain that it was not University of Washington but he interrupted me and said that he knew it and that it was an excellent school. And then he added that those who NEED to know do know this school reputation.</p>
<p>I really don't think that the name recognition is an issue whatsoever, unless you really need that ego boost that comes from telling people that you/your child attends HYPSM. The name will be recognized when and where it matters.</p>
<p>People who really matter (and I don't mean this condescendingly) will not have an issue recognizing WashU. </p>
<p>Newprov29, my friend was thinking of basically HYPSM. But we can't base everything on the USNews rankings. A lot of people think that WashU actively finds ways to boost the right numbers so they can climb the rankings. Not completely unfounded, but that doesn't negate the fact that WashU is an amazing school.</p>
<p>I live in the South, so I have no clue, but is WashU very highly regarded in Missouri? I was talking to a MO friend and she didn't have much to say about WashU, even though she obsesses about Stanford/Penn. I've always wondered about how well colleges are regarded in the home city/state. For example, in my city our state school is the butt of many, many jokes. I was wondering if Chicago people don't care much about NW because "what's close isn't good" or if Boston kids aren't as enraptured by Harvard/MIT. Regional differences are really interesting. My east coast friend said that no one she knows knows/cares about WashU or UIUC, both great schools.</p>
<p>You bring up a great point, yalerose.</p>
<p>I live in a rural part of PA (2-3 hours from Philly), and here Penn is pretty much unheard of. If anyone mentions Penn, people generally interpret it as meaning Penn State.</p>
<p>I think name recognition actually is a pretty big factor. I love Wash U, but the blank stares I get after telling people where I go can be annoying. When I was deciding where to go, I thought about that, although many people don't recognize it and tend to think it's some random crap college, the people that matter (aka grad school admissions) know about it. It can be frustrating, though. And for people who really want other people to recognize that they are smart, Wash U doesn't work so well.</p>
<p>Its peer assesment ratio at 4.1 (USNWR) is among the lowest in the top 30 national universities. This is data that reflects how well professionals at other universities, who will be making graduate/professional school admissions decisions, regard Wash. U.</p>
<p>It really belongs with Tufts and Colgate, not Northeastern and Hopkins.</p>
<p>As near as I can determine from searching websites, Wash.U. and Johns Hopkins are the only top 25 national universities that do not claim to be need blind in admissions.</p>
<p>This makes them refreshingly honest or disturbingly venial.</p>
<p>Actually, the PA score is a not universally respected measure of opinion, seeing as it is compiled from a voluntary survey that has been publicly and roundly criticized by several university presidents (Reed and Drew come to mind.) This has been discussed so often on CC that you could easily do a search on it and spend hours reading the debate.</p>
<p>But if you're going to use PA as the one and only measure of comparing "peer" institutions within a couple tenths of a point, at least be fair. </p>
<p>WUSTL at 4.1 "belongs" with other privates such as Carnegie Mellon (4.1) or Georgetown or Rice (both 4.0). Tufts at 3.6 is off the mark and Colgate is not a research university.</p>
<p>At 4.3 NW is close enough to be a peer institution with WUSTL, as is Dartmouth and Brown. If you can seriously argue that the difference between 4.3 and 4.1 is so significant, than try to explain to readers on the NW, D, and B forums that those institutions do not "belong" in the same group as those universities with 4.5 PA scores, that is: Penn, Columbia, Cornell, and JHU. That should go over well. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>The PA score of the USNWR is hardly the be all and end all of how professionals at other universities regard WUSTL. Here is another source of data, hard data in fact, that indicates that WUSTL is well known and respected by the officials at other universities, I would say particularly among those with graduate and professional schools. Flip through to page 11 (top private research universities). </p>
<p><a href="http://mup.asu.edu/research2008.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://mup.asu.edu/research2008.pdf</a></p>
<p>You are attempting to refute deliberate insults with facts. </p>
<p>Their need aware policy is, in fact, almost unique among top universities.</p>
<p>Of course it is better not to attend an institution than to matriculate and have them substitute loans for grants after the freshman year.</p>
<p>BigG - I have no idea who or what you are refering to in your post - but WashU never substitutes loans for grants.</p>