<p>Has anybody else felt worse about their acceptance as a result of scrolling through cc threads?</p>
<p>I almost feel like an acceptance here means no other top acceptances, at least that's what posters have been implying. Hope that's not true :/</p>
<p>I doubt it. A lot of this kids are just angry that they weren’t accepted, and they are trying to find ways to compensate for their misfortune. I got deferred SCEA by Yale so i know that i have a competative application. Also, you have to realize that the kids on cc are just 50-100 or so of the top applicants out of 29000. It is very possible that other kids with near identical stats as them got accepted. If anything getting into WUSTL is a good sign of whats to come. At least thats how i feel.</p>
<p>Yeah don’t let other poster’s sour grapes get you down. An acceptance to WashU means that one of the top institutions in the country wants you to come to their school. Thats a good thing :D</p>
<p>Stupid topic is stupid.</p>
<p>I am truly excited to have been accepted, I am, it’s just that people have been making it sound as though waitlistees end up getting more acceptances from other schools. I just wanted to know if anybody else was feeling the same way/ if there was any validity to their claims.</p>
<p>FailSafe: I don’t believe there is ANY validity to that. I have a daughter that is a freshman in college. Last year, she was accepted to WashU, and she received acceptances to many top schools. She is now at Dartmouth, her dream school (deferred early, accepted regular). Another classmate of hers was accepted to WashU, and she is now a happy Harvard freshman (also accepted to Princeton and many other top schools). I could go on and on with examples. I also have a D that is a senior in high school, and she just got accepted to Wash U (yay!). While she didn’t apply to MIT, 2 other classmates that were accepted to Wash U were both just accepted to MIT yesterday. Sure, there are kids with very high stats that were waitlisted. But there are just as many with very high stats that were accepted. Stats are just one part of an application, and each college chooses candidates based on their own criteria. The kids that were not accepted to Wash U with great stats, etc. will be accepted to other top schools, as will the kids that were accepted. In a couple of weeks, this will be a non-issue.</p>
<p>As one who received a likely letter from Penn and got accepted to Washu I say that’s hogwash.</p>
<p>this is really a silly thread. total trash</p>
<p>I agree with the above posters–that WUSTL acceptance means no other top acceptances, is simply not true. My sister, a current Penn senior, was also accepted to Duke in addition to WUSTL. One of my sister’s good friends, currently a Yale senior, was accepted by WUSTL, Princeton, Columbia, etc. and even had a full ride to Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>Sorry for those who think this is silly. A few kids from my school and I have become unnecessarily insecure… Thank you all for sharing, appreciate it.</p>
<p>Here’s another boost up for you (those kids who are upset about their waitlisting really need to chill).</p>
<p>I was accepted in 08 (current junior, class of 2012), then proceeded to be accepted at both Duke and Johns Hopkins. In fact, I was accepted at literally every school I applied to (10 in total).</p>
<p>“it’s just that people have been making it sound as though waitlistees end up getting more acceptances from other schools”</p>
<p>Considering that relatively speaking almost everyone gets waitlisted, every senior in the country would just apply to WashU to get the good luck charm of getting waitlisted so as to get acceptances to other schools. It doesn’t make sense…</p>
<p>Congrats and be happy!</p>
<p>Although I do believe that WUSTL may have Tufts Syndrome, I do not agree with the others who were waitlisted when they say that an acceptance means your app is weaker than the apps of those who were waitlisted.</p>
<p>WUSTL is an outstanding and competitive institution. It is in the top 20 for a reason. An acceptance there means your app is one of the best, so I wouldn’t worry about it being a bad omen at all. Congrats on your achievement, and just sit back and chill because I’m sure a few more acceptances are on their way. =)</p>
<p>ridiculous</p>
<p>What can be gathered from ALL of this is what admissions officers (and common sense) have been shouting for years: no matter how predictable you think college admissions is, no matter how much of a “sure thing” you think you are — in the end, it’s a crapshoot. </p>
<p>People who got likelies from HYPSM got in --and didn’t get in.
Peopld who got no likelies from HYPSM got in --and didn’t get in. </p>
<p>23 people from my school applied to WUSTL, all were rejected / waitlisted. Those 23 included people who got likelies from Duke, Northwestern, Columbia, and Stanford. </p>
<p>Personally I would love to hear this bizarreness explained, but throwing immediately around ‘Tufts Syndrome’ and "Elitism’ is jumping to vastly preposterous conclusions.</p>
<p>^^^ I agree with the above. What would REALLY help is if like at some many other schools, someone from Admissions actually monitored this site and could offer definitive answers. Less that, everything else is conjecture. However, it does stand to reason, that students that “seem” to be getting into and “likelies” from similar schools do find that they are getting waitlisted as a higher percentage at WashU. The pure “volume” of chatter on this topic over the years seems to confirm that it IS by quantitative definition something that the population applying to WashU is unable to get an answer for.</p>
<p>Admissions is a black box … granted … but everything we as parents and students are taught and preached to from guidance counselors, books and information available on the web and elsewhere indicate that if you have the grades and the test scores that MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE those are the indicators that drive decisions, the REST, ECs, essays, etc. are what help to break the ties. There are VERY few schools like Wake Forest, etc. that are going “test optional”, but even then you performance in HS as indicated by your grades and the level of classes you’ve taken as indicated by your transcript carry the heaviest weight. THEREFORE, almost by definition, some of the results that we see from these forums are unexplainable. When visiting WashU, which most of us did, were we TOLD that our test scores and grades carried less weight than say a really good Common App essay? Umm … No. If, as some have suggested, the Admins are making their decisions on “feeling for fit” then that is a total breakdown of the system. What I am more inclined to believe is that there is, in fact, some quantitative analysis going on … potentially related to geographic region, etc. As an example, lets just say that there are 1500 open freshmen spots: that’s 30 per state, right? I’ll use Illinois as an example, if I could only choose 30 from the Illinois, I’m not going to take all 30 from the “North Shore” schools that define the highest performing schools in the northern suburbs of Chicago, I’m going to spread it around a bit, right? So, my daughter had 15 people apply from her school … a National Blue Ribbon Award HS in 2010 … 1 … just 1 … got accepted, the rest were ALL waitlisted (no rejections) and the one that got accepted was NOT the highest ranked student among the group.</p>
<p>No obviously, some states comprise a higher concentration of students at WashU than others, including Illinois, but you get my point, right? There must be some analysis such as this going on, right. Because the alternative is just too hard to believe.</p>
<p>My D applied to 8 schools and has been accepted into all with WashU being her only waitlist … she’s only waiting on results from Rice. WashU was never her first choice, so we were not overly concerned with the results, but that’s not to say that we were in any way uninterested. We visited campus, had an on campus interview, applied for multiple merit scholarships, etc. etc. My 2 cents …</p>
<p>I’ve quietly read posts at this forum and at first thought they were funny. The speculation is far from the way admissions actually work. I was on the admission committee for many years at an ivy and we were well aware that people think “waitlisting” at one school has deep meaning for another.
Here’s what waitlisting really means. It means you met the criteria for acceptance at this school but they did not have the space. Period. If a space opens and a spot is offered, wouldn’t you still be “over qualified”?<br>
Admissions is looking to fill a class with a certain profile and could do it many times over with the qualified applicants that apply today. They don’t reject or waitlist someone because they think that person will get into a “better school”. They will waitlist someone who meets the qualifications for admittance, but they failed to produce an application that stood out in a pile of 29,000. (and yet, their ap was still impressive by diagnostic standards.) Test scores are only one way to stand out. There is a threshold that each school expects, but after that, they don’t make or break the application. Every school strives to take what they see as their best applicants. Otherwise, they can’t compete with the best schools.
In recent years, service to the community has become king. People can hire SAT/ACT tutors all day long. They can’t hire a coach to make you a contributing member of society. What you also don’t see from this thread is that someone with an 2350 on their SAT may have taken 3 dates to do it. It is an excellent score, but may be not so different than the applicant that took it once or twice and scored a 2050 each time then knocked the SATIIs out of the park.
Regarding service…so much of what kids list is fabricated or exaggerated. Admissions knows that and can smell it. Listing 5-10 service projects that take one day is not nearly as impressive as the kid that volunteers every week for two years as a big brother or at a senior center or as a candy striper, etc. Kids don’t make that up because they know we can verify it. The one day projects we can’t verify, and everyone knows it. Also, most schools require service to graduate now and that is what shows on many aps. Now a kid that has a passion for something…well, that kid will be the one that continues to contribute in college. Remember the box that asked if you would continue this service after high school? Those kids often do. That passion often comes out in their essays as well. The essay isn’t just “all about them”.
Also, a kid that has a passion in a certain subject such as science or math will have insane scores, research, internships, awards, etc. that shows it. He might have lower scores than another candidate in, for example, English. However, if the class profile still needs more science people, that kid wins. </p>
<p>Finally, here is the last reason your argument about the admitted candidates not being good enough for the ivys is false. WashU is probably accepting 4,300 to 4,500 candidates to fill a class of 1,500. Many of those do see Wash U as their first choice. The other 3,000 do choose other schools. In the case of WashU, most often it’s the ivys or MIT or Duke or another school in the top 10 ranking. If these candidates are of a lesser calibar, why do 3,000 of them have these other choices?
It’s time people here to realize that these candidates were not any less qualified. ( You’ll realize that when acceptances come out for the ivys in 2 weeks.) Nearly all will get into at least one to two schools that are ranked higher than Wash U. At that point, they will decide whether WashU is their first choice.
And guess what? The waitlisted/rejected people will have choices, too, as long as you didn’t apply to all reaches.<br>
Admissions may look random, but many factors weigh in. And don’t get me started on geographical or ethnic percentages that also enter in.
Hope this helps some to move on and congratulations to the admitted pool. You’ve earned it!</p>
<p>Thanks adman, that was extremely insightful, I feel better now, and I hope people dont keep trying to bring up “tufts syndrome”</p>
<p>Yes, thanks adman … very insightful, and basically … DUH! Right? What would have been more interesting IS the analysis on how a school chooses relative to Geography for example right? For WashU as you can imagine MANY kids apply from Illinois, and MANY of those kids come from the higher performing districts in the Chicago area. Well, WashU has a vested interest in NOT choosing ALL the kids from Illinois from the same suburbs surrounding Chicago, right? So … some VERY qualified kids get the waitlist because too many kids from that “area” are applying. Then when someone posts scores on CC from this group, and someone from say Omaha reads it, it’s NOT an apples to apples comparison, right? The pool from Montana is not the same as the pool from Chicago, so some “higher” kids may get waitlisted in the Chicago group and some “lower” kids from Montana may get accepted. And I only use “higher” and “lower” to illustrate that those stats are what we’re all reading here and asking how can a 2000 blah blah get accepted over a 2350 blah blah. It may be about “service” but MORE LIKELY it’s about hitting target numbers from various geographic regions.</p>
<p>^^^ I’ll just add, since it’s relative to my point. Inside Illinois for applicants applying to the UofI, this is also highly illustrative. We have a HS near me that has a student population of over 5000. Well, let’s just say that half the graduating class is trying to get into the state flagship university. That means that UofI sees approximately 600 apps from that one HS per year. UofI cannot and won’t admit as many “numerically” from that single HS. Also, some kids getting in from other HS may have lesser stats than those rejected or waitlisted from “giant” HS. It’s not fair to compare, since they were just unlucky to be part of a “subset” of the application pool that was too large to accommodate all that would have otherwise been accepted had they perhaps been grouped with another HS.</p>