<p>According to our school's naviance site: 4 students over the past four years have been admitted, 15 waitlisted, and none denied. Have others noticed this trend at their school? What is the reasoning? Also , I can't find WUSTL common set data any where. I was curious to see how many make it off the waitlist.</p>
<p>WUSTL is notorious for its HUGE waitlists.</p>
<p>Last year, no one was admitted off of the waitlist due to an over-enrolled freshman class.</p>
<p>If I get waitlisted, I won’ wait</p>
<p>NO I agree I won’t count on getting in on any waitlist</p>
<p>Wash U is a big wait-listing university, but does anyone know why they waitlist so many kids?</p>
<p>because there are too many qualified kids applying and they only have a few spots, but at the same time they do not want to reject those students outright.</p>
<p>Somewhere I read from Yale’s site, it is clearly indicates - They feel the students who deserve attending and capable too, but only limited spots, that’s why they put the students on waitlist, at least you are as capable as the most other admitted ones. I think this makes students feel better instead of rejection.</p>
<p>There was also talk about Wash U subject to “Tufts” syndrome when most qualified applicants ( the ones with perfect SAT, etc.) are waitlisted because University feels that these studenst are unlikely to marticulate and applied to Wash U as safety. Plus, this decreases acceptance percentage, altough I would not think it can affect it that much. Does anyone know how many Wash U admitted last year - wasn’t it 4,000+ and how many waitlisted.
To me, Wash U can do whatever they please and the fact that they attract so many talened students speaks for itself.</p>
<p>Yes, Wash U is a great school that attracts great applicants.
It is apparently also well known in upper academia that it games the numbers on admissions, playing to USNWR and other rankings as much as possible.</p>
<p>Wait lists are often large because they are used to fill in last-minute holes when more than the expected numbers of hooked students decline admission. E.g., a school might feel they don’t have enough HS newspaper editors or oboe players. They don’t know in advance which holes they will need to fill, so they wait-list everyone admittable whom they might need.</p>
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<p>As someone who has worked in academia, both at a HYPSM school and a lower-ranked university (as well as being married to someone who has been on graduate admissions committees at at HYPSM school), I know that there is no such “well known” information and it is unfair to the students who attend WashU for such a statement to be circulated. Where is the evidence to support such a claim? The fact that someone raises the issue means that it then appears in the search responses and some people take that speculation as evidence even though it is unsupported and the cycle continues.</p>
<p>As for gaming the system with waitlists, the only way that could be done is if a school accepts a lower number than they think they need and plan to take a large number off the waitlist, which would lead to a lowered acceptance rate. Last year WashU took 0 people off the waitlist due to a high yield; thus, WashU’s waitlist activity had no effect on its acceptance rate.</p>
<p>Penn, for example, has said that they waitlist over 3,000 people, because they need the flexibility to fill in gaps. As vossron says, you never know what you will need to complete a class. A large number of waitlistees might decide to decline a waitlist position, so there needs to be enough to fill the various niches.</p>
<p>WU shouldn’t be singled out; the “well known” part is fairly universal. Another view (my bold):
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<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/9945929-post35.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/9945929-post35.html</a></p>
<p>I don’t see why people care so much about the waitlist or the number of people on it. If you’re waitlisted, it means you didn’t make the cut so you shouldn’t get your hopes up. Consider it a rejection so you’re pleasantly surprised if you actually get off the list.</p>
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<p>How so? Let’s say they chose to waitlist a valedictorian (because they didn’t think he would attend). Had they chosen to accept rather than waitlist him the acceptance rate would be higher. Am I missing something?</p>
<p>colleges look better if they have a low acceptance rate - makes them look more selective which is a good thing in their eyes. had they chosen to accept the valedictorian, he probably wouldnt have attended given he was a valedictorian and probably got offered a spot at hypm or some ivy league so that would mean washu’s yield would go down which is a bad thing - the schools wants to look like the most popular thing out there and if ppl dont as readily accept its offers this hurts washu’s stats</p>
<p>WU’s yield is lower than all Ivy League yields… therefore I think it is within reason for them to waitlist Valedictorians (highly qualified ones… you would be surprised to know how many Valedictorians aren’s that great…) who don’t show interest–there is a very small chance they will attend.</p>
<p>Karen11: “Last year WashU took 0 people off the waitlist due to a high yield; thus, WashU’s waitlist activity had no effect on its acceptance rate.”
Like ccuser, I think Karen is wrong - acceptance rate is lower if people are waitlisted. If someone is accepted off waitlist though that does increase acceptance rate because these students are now accepted, correct? However, this percentage is probably small so acceptance rate is lower if a lot of students are waitlisted on average, I would think.</p>
<p>WashU was accused of using its waitlist to increase its rankings. My point was that the only way that this could happen is if the waitlist was used to lower the acceptance rate number. Thus, for example, last year Columbia announced its acceptance rate on April 1 (I don’t remember what it was). Later, 75 kids were pulled of the waitlist, which actually raised its acceptance rate to above the number announced on April 1. I’m not saying that Columbia did this on purpose; they just had a lower yield than expected. But if WashU were “using” the waitlist to lower its acceptance rate, then it would decrease the number of admitted students in regular decision, announce its new lower acceptance rate and then pull off a lot of kids from the waitlist after that announcement was made. The fact that it admitted so many kids in RD that there was an over-enrollment of 100 kids, means that they did not use the waitlist to decrease their acceptance rate. </p>
<p>As to the number of people being waitlisted, that is necessary for schools outside of HYP, because if waitlisted students need to be pulled off, the school needs enough of a backlog to make sure there are available students with the required characteristics, such as oboe player, for example, who are willing to give up their place in their deposited school. Harvard may be able to count on the fact that most kids who are pulled off the waitlist will agree to attend, but most schools don’t have that luxury. That’s why Duke, as noted in the NY Times, waitlists over 3500 kids, as another example.</p>
<p>Seriously people, stop with all you speculation about the biggest myth of all time: the “Tufts Syndrome.” Honestly, it’s just arrogant people who have 4.0 GPAs that can’t stand a hit to their ego and so they decide to create a myth and bash the school. If you can’t stand being rejected or waitlisted then don’t apply to a top school, make yourself feel better and apply to less selective schools. If you take the risk, then don’t wine about being rejected or waitlisted. For those who cry wolf about WUSTL having a large waitlist, you clearly have disregarded the OTHER schools that have a large waitlist. Do not single out and falsely label WUSTL as something it is not. If any of you actually understand admissions, WUSTL looks for interests. Ever heard of those people who apply to all the Ivies? Yeah, you probably hate them. Why? Because they drive the admit rate down. Well those same people also apply to WUSTL. WUSTL doesn’t want kids who are just applying randomly and taking spots away from kids who want to go to WUSTL (there is a reason why Columbia and UPenn accept about 50% of their students under ED). (<a href=“http://www.dailypennsylvanian.com/article/early-decision-admit-rate-falls-26-percent[/url]”>http://www.dailypennsylvanian.com/article/early-decision-admit-rate-falls-26-percent</a>)
What makes WUSTL such a happy school? It’s because the kids who go to WUSTL wants to go to WUSTL, not a peer institution. WUSTL looks for demonstrated interest, not to inflate their yield, but to ensure that their students are happy. For those of you that have actually spent time on campus, you can tell that the students are happy here. The admissions counselor said so, and the tour guide would ask passing students if they are happy. Go to Princeton and you will realize that there are students who are unhappy and even have to **make appointments to meet with their friends<a href=“%5Burl=http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/04/the-organization-kid/2164/]The%20Organization%20Kid%20-%20Magazine%20-%20The%20Atlantic[/url]”>/B</a>
WUSTL doesn’t want that. Yield is yield. Why care about yield when you have 28,823 applicants? There is bound to be atleast 2,000 kids who wants to go to WUSTL in that list. They can care less about a valedictorian. WUSTL can also care less about ranking, they have propelled themselves as a internationally known school. People who complain about yield have no idea what they are talking about, they have no proof.
The proof is that NOT ONLY WUSTL waitlists thousands of students. So did Duke with 3,382; Dartmouth had 1,740; Yale had a 25% increase to 932. Yeah go cry “Tuft Syndrome” to that.
<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/education/14waitlist.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/education/14waitlist.html</a></p>
<p>Lastly, would you rather have WUSTL take about 50% of its students under ED? Cause they can do that just like Columbia and UPenn does that, WUSTL can do that and care less about its RD students.</p>