<p>First, I should point out the fact that I am not a WUSTL student, neither did I apply to WUSTL. I do not post alot, but have been reading CC for the past 2 years. I have no allegiance towards or against WUSTL.</p>
<p>I have wanted to ask this question for a long time, and maybe someone from WUSTL can answer. Why are there so much animosity towards WUSTL? Time and time again I read post/articles on this site and other college sites that makes all kind of allegations against WUSTL of not accepting some of the best students, for having a questionable waitlist policy, and for being involved in questionable activities for college rankings.</p>
<p>I have no idea if these allegations are true or not, but it appears to be a serious topic on some college sites and articles. There seem to be a strong degree of bitterness towards WUSTL that I have not seen towards any other school. Can anyone tell me why that is? As far as I know, WUSTL is a top school and I will never question the integrity of a top learning institution, however, the 5 waitlisted top students at my high school would be quick to tell me otherwise. I honestly feel bad for the WUSTL students and incoming freshman that have to read these posts with all these allegations so often. I dont see so much hatred being directed at any other school, and just dont know why. </p>
<p>Can these allegations against WUSTL affect its ranking?</p>
<p>No. Most arguments are biased and come from baseless speculation. </p>
<p>As one who got waitlisted from 7 schools this year, including Yale, UNC, Duke, Wesleyan, and Georgetown, I affirm that the so-called waitlist practice is nowadays ubiquitous. Saying WashU abuses the admissions process is now considered foolish and hackneyed. </p>
<p>WashU is a great institution, built not on CC flaming and blabbering, but academic promise.</p>
<p>I would love to know too. WASHU is a fine school, great academics, resources and the student body seems to me to be genuine nice, intelligent and engaged. But for some reason people has this negative thing about WASHU. My daughter got accepted and end up choosing Vanderbilt over WASHU. She felt that the negatives towards vandy were more tangible then the ones towards WASHU. Like, the criticism towards Vandy is more related to the greek life, lack of true diversity and such. In regards to WASHU the negativity is kind of everywhere. But she felt that WAHSU is such a fine school! But did not choose to attend. Just something was not right. go figure.</p>
<p>Interesting question…one of the things I have heard from a college counseling center is that WUSL is much more likely to wait list top candidates if they have not paid a visit to the school. Is it the truth…I don’t know for sure but I guess if you really want to go to WU, it would be a good idea to visit.</p>
<p>I don’t think that the allegations regarding admissions policies are unsubstantiated. At least at my school (a pretty big school), WUStL waitlists a substantial amount of applicants, more often than other schools of similar admissions selectivity.</p>
<p>Heres how Wash U does it’s decisions:
Bottom 50% of applicants: rejected
50-35%: waitlist
35-10%: accepted
10-1% waitlist
Wash U waitlists the very best applicants because they’re afraid that these applicants will flock to better schools, leaving poor little Wash U with a low yield rate and a high acceptance rate. There’s no way out of the trap: show as much interest as you want. Visit as many times as you want. If you’re too good, you aren’t coming to Wash U.</p>
<p>That isn’t actually what I believe - that’s just what some people say. Although I do agree that there is something insidious about Wash U’s waitlist tactics.</p>
<p>I have several friends here who came to WashU instead of Princeton, or Harvard, or wherever.</p>
<p>^That there is an example of personal experience. It may not highlight the norm, but it’s far more valid than some random scale you thought up with absolutely no insight into the admissions office.</p>
<p>Drought, you are just writing baseless speculation, the type of comments that I mentioned in my previous post. I chose Wash U over Brown and UChicago, along with multiple waitlists mentioned earlier. </p>
<p>Reason? Well I got an almost full ride, so I figured it was best for my family to save 50k per year, rather than spend it.</p>
<p>It’s wierd that so many people are saying WashU plays ranking game.</p>
<p>How come a school stayed around 12 for the past decade plays ranking game? It just doesn’t make sense.</p>
<p>Besides, in my belive, school have the right to waitlist those who really aren’t interested in WashU. Since they definitely won’t come to WashU why should they have the spot instead of giving to others who need more.</p>
<p>To be honest, if you get waitlisted and got into a “prestigious” ivy school, and still would take the time to actively complain and make random assumptions of WashU, I wouldn’t think you are a very nice or healthy (mentally) person. In that case, WashU was right to waitlist you since you would ruin WashU’s reputation of accepting friendly, laidback, and supportive students. (we don’t want any cutthroat here.)</p>
<p>In any case, to refute drought’s point, many students in the 1-10% tier have been accepted since they applied for and received generous scholarships, of which are solely merit-based. During Multicultural Weekend, I also have seen many people get into more “prestigious” schools, such as HYPSM and ivies, so if you consider them the 1-10% applicants, then yes they did get accepted.
I do admit that WashU has a larger waitlist (seeing from the forum threads anyways) of which many seemingly qualified students did not get into while many that are seemingly less qualified students did get in. I don’t know, maybe because WashU considers personality as a larger factor, of which goes back to my first point. (Maybe that’s why there is so much hate :P)</p>
<p>Like someone else who said on this forum before, you do not “deserve” to get into any school. If you got waitlisted, stop complaining, go and be happy at the school that you did get into.</p>
<p>The way I see it is this: I think people “almost expect” to be waitlisted or rejected from schools like Brown or Georgetown because they are quite well known, yet they just assume they’ll get into WashU. They’re blown away if they were put on the waitlist.</p>
<p>It’s that reality hit them: WashU is actually a very good, desirable school that they downplayed. If they REALLY wanted to go there, that same applicant would have demonstrated interest by applying ED or at least visiting. Now not all schools care about this, or keep track of these things. But the folks at WashU are proud of the school. It’s worth a visit (and you’d be swayed towards loving it if you do!)</p>
<p>One of the things that everyone says about the school is “people are friendly”. Well, that’s because the kids who go there are happy to be there. They like their school. They’re glad they ended up there. And that’s how it should be. Kids may apply to many, many schools, but the adcoms make a point to pick the kids they feel are excited about wanting to be at WashU. Maybe they could have chosen more applicants just based on scores and gpas, but they were looking for something more genuine than that.</p>
<p>Now that’s hard, you say, because WashU does not have an extra supplement essay. That probably gets many more kids sending in their application, but that also means the adcoms have to work very hard to figure out how to pick their class. Obviously it wasn’t just by looking at some reworked “Why _____” essay.</p>
<p>The way I see it is this: I think people “almost expect” to be waitlisted or rejected from schools like Brown or Georgetown because they are quite well known, yet they just assume they’ll get into WashU. They’re blown away if they were put on the waitlist.</p>
<p>It’s that reality hit them: WashU is actually a very good, desirable school that they downplayed. If they REALLY wanted to go there, that same applicant would have demonstrated interest by applying ED or at least visiting. Now not all schools care about this, or keep track of these things. But the folks at WashU are proud of the school. It’s worth a visit (and you’d be swayed towards loving it if you do!)</p>
<p>One of the things that everyone says about the school is “people are friendly”. Well, that’s because the kids who go there are happy to be there. They like their school. They’re glad they ended up there. And that’s how it should be. Kids may apply to many, many schools, but the adcoms make a point to pick the kids they feel are excited about wanting to be at WashU. Maybe they could have chosen more applicants just based on scores and gpas, but they were looking for something more genuine than that.</p>
<p>Now that’s hard, you say, because WashU does not have an extra supplement essay. That probably gets many more kids sending in their application, but that also means the adcoms have to work very hard to figure out how to pick their class. Obviously it wasn’t just by looking at some reworked “Why _____” essay.</p>
<p>Looking at the naviance data at my son’s school, WashU has accepted ALL the high stats kids from the past 3 years, including three 2400s on the SAT who were accepted to HYP. And no, not all of these high stats kids were scholarship winners. It’s interesting that when 2350+ 4.0 kids are not accepted to HYPSM, other people say that it is about fit, not just stats. And many of us know kids who got into one of HYP but not the others, which means that it is not a simple game of plugging in stats into a computer and coming out with a list of the same admits at each school. Well, it’s about fit at WashU too. If some who were waitlisted at WashU got into schools they feel are more selective, then they should be happy to attend those schools and stop being negative about a school where others were accepted. Nobody has the “right” to be accepted at any school. And, if you look at the average SAT scores at WashU vs. the Ivies, you will see that WashU is higher than or comparable to a number of them, so they are clearly not rejecting high stats kids.</p>
<p>I agree with limabeans and green678. WUSTL is not alone in trying to figure fit and who would likely attend. The top student at our HS last year got into two Ivies but was rejected from Vassar. She clearly was more then qualified for Vassar. Everyone assumes she did not get in because they did not expect her to attend based on her gpa, test scores and ECs. So, in fact, other schools do look closely at fit and the probability that any given applicant will attend.</p>
<p>Oops. Sorry about that double post up there. My computer was not happy yesterday!</p>
<p>@Drought: oh my! You must have been convinced yourself that you’re that “very best” that WashU waitlisted when you convincingly stated your (unsupported) numbers. (As if anyone really knows! or it was so clean cut.) However you weakened your post with such an emotional appeal here, obviously totally unsupported:
</p>
<p>Yep, poor little WashU is trying to figure out the best matches. What other school is doing that I wonder?</p>
<p>ahaha
because people are just sour they didn’t get into their “safety”
they hear stories from friends and make completely baseless accusations that do not make any sense</p>
<p>my thoughts, based on people in the admissions scene who I talked to:
why waitlist the “very best” applicants but not accept them? It doesn’t make sense. If those very best applicants don’t accept, then WashU turns to its waitlist of the “next best” applicants. Why waitlist those extremely high scorers? well perhaps they don’t fit into their vision of what their freshman class’s personality will be. There are still many high scorers that get into the school though, but people like to exaggerate negatives and ignore positives.</p>
<p>@limabeans: I didn’t apply to Wash U. I don’t have top-tier stats. I wouldn’t be in the top 10@ of Wash U applicants. I don’t consider myself intellectually elite. I was merely answering the OP’s question. I even stated in my post that I don’t wholeheartedly agree with Wash U’s detractors.</p>
<p>@Drought: Whoa! Excuse me?! I was quoting your own words. Not sure where the “That isn’t actually what I believe” comment fits in.</p>
<p>ALL schools try to find kids who are a “match” for their school. That’s what Brown does, NYU does, Bucknell does, Carleton does, what Florida State does. It is not simply that they alone watch their yield. ALL schools watch their yield, their ranking. Unfortunately, students who get on a waitlist “blame” the school for being too picky or selective. But ALL schools have a waitlist. This is not unique to WashU.</p>
<p>I do think one reason why many people include WashU on their list of schools to apply to is because it falls right in between the “most selective” and the “highly selective”. So it’s maybe a safety for an applicant who was considering Harvard and maybe a reach for a student who was considering an LAC or public uni or ________. But the WashU admission committee is not thinking about reaches or safeties (because they don’t really know). They’re looking for something else: those kids who are academically talented who would be the right candidate for them. If that applicant didn’t get into another school, like Harvard or Colby, they’d write to the school to express their interest in getting off the WL and going there instead.</p>
<p>Now I think this thread should head over to Duke. Their waitlist is much much bigger, yet no one seems annoyed or angry with them.</p>
<p>Drought - I certainly don’t want to get involved in an argument, but possibly I am a bit confused. You begin your post with "Heres how Wash U does it’s decisions:” You then end your post with “That isn’t actually what I believe”. My question is, why would you post totally unsubstantiated and invalid data that you might have heard or seen somewhere. How does that add any value to a forum where people are looking for information? All you are doing is perpetuating hearsay and rumors.</p>