<p>What exactly does Wash U do to help themselves in the rankings?</p>
<p>washu gets this reputation of actively trying to climb college rankings by:
- waitlisting a ton of applicants (especially over-qualified ones)
- marketing. aggresively. they spam you with tons of mail so you apply. poor trees
- i don’t know if it’s true or not, but i heard that when they do take people off the waitlist, they just give you a call and give you a couple days to decide to accept the spot or not. if you don’t accept, you’re still considered a part of the “not-accepted” number, thereby decreasing the acceptance rate and increasing the yield rate artificially.
<em>again, not sure if it’s true…maybe other colleges do it the same way?</em></p>
<p>i think my points have some basis in the truth, but to actively seek a high ranking just seems too despicable for an organization that should be committed to a certain level of honor. so most likely, washu is not THAT overrated…</p>
<p>i agree with oranges, but i believe they consider climbing rankings just a more effective marketing method. It doesn’t mean that they’re being dishonorable.</p>
<p>It’s a very undeserved rumor.</p>
<p>If Wash U wait-lists all these “over qualified” applicants, then how does it maintain amongst the highest average SAT score in the country? Wash U’s average SAT scores are MUCH higher than a lot of it’s peer schools. If you rank schools by SAT averages, Wash U is easily in the top several schools. </p>
<p>Wait listing has no bearing on a school’s ranking. If it denied those students and had no wait list, then they still would report the same accepted student numbers. There’s a few threads on the Wash U boards about how many students were accepted from the wait list, and it seems to be SMALLER than other schools in recent years. Acceptance percentages are only affected when/if the school accepts you from the wait list. A school’s selectivity is not determined by how many kids are REJECTED, but rather on how many are ACCEPTED. It makes no difference in rankings if a kid is rejected or waitlisted… it only matters if they are accepted. And Wash U doesn’t seem to accept anymore kids from its wait list than other schools, and a couple years ago it didn’t accept anyone from the wait list (it was the year where they actually over-enrolled the freshmen, which I think was 2005 or 2006). </p>
<p>Wash U has 5 undergraduate colleges (most universities have 1 or 2), so it has 5 different enrollment numbers it needs to aim for. The Business School has a certain class size, the Art school has their own class size, etc. According to newspapers and magazines (and it makes complete sense when you think about it), wait listing allows colleges to take exactly as many people as it needs to get its ideal enrollment size. Otherwise, you’re just completely guesstimating when you do initial acceptances. If Wash U does have a larger wait list size than other colleges, I think you can directly and simply attribute it to this fact alone. </p>
<p>But, if people still think that they wait list tons of people because they are “rankings climbers”, then you actually need to try to look at how much acceptance percentages actually factor into rankings. Acceptance percentages make up a TINY portion of the overall factors that go into rankings. “Selectivity” makes up 15% of USNews formula. Of that “Selectivity” category: 10% is based on acceptance rate; 40% is based on the number of people in the top 10% of their high school class; and 50% is based on average SAT scores. So, looking at just the acceptance rate by itself, the acceptance rate only comprises 1.5% of the USNews rankings. Even if a school really messed with numbers (say, that a school put together its entire student body by ONLY accepting off the wait list, thereby making it’s yield 100%), it would still be exceptionally difficult for this extreme college to improve its rankings because acceptance rates are such a small portion in the rankings. </p>
<p>Wash U has had much increased name recognition in the past 2 decades, and as a result it has gotten a lot more selective. Some people are skeptical about the school because of that, and try to pin point reasons that ultimately make no sense at all. It does seem that there are a lot of people who are on their wait list, but that makes no difference in rankings, and it doesn’t seem that Wash U accepts more kids from it than other colleges.</p>
<p>I got lots of mail when I applied to Wash U, but I didn’t apply because of the tons of mail. Other people might have, but I don’t think that’s a reason for most people. Wash U does have an uphill battle in terms of name recognition, and I think the mail just helps to inform people that it really is a great school. People who are applying to a school like Wash U are likely applying to other prestigious schools, and aren’t applying out of the blue because they got lots of mail from them. I don’t know, that’s my subjective analysis at least. They probably would have applied any way, with or without the mail, but the mail probably helps Wash U tell those prospective kids about the school that they would have applied to in the first place. Wash U is a school that always tries to better itself and look towards the future, and I really admire my school for that. It’s already a great school, but it tries to be greater. It doesn’t rest on its laurels and isn’t content to stay stagnant. It probably could get on just fine with its current rankings because it’s already really prestigious and highly ranked, but it always wants to do better, and I’m proud of it for doing so.</p>
<p>"2. marketing. aggresively. they spam you with tons of mail so you apply. poor trees "</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure that the spamming has influenced me to apply, and I talked to my friend today and apparently same with him.</p>
<p>WashU’s PA score of 4.1 is dragging it’s USNews ranking down.</p>
<p>If PA scores were not a factor, then WashU would be tied with MIT right now (6th in the nation)</p>
<p>WashU is an HYSPM equivalent basically.</p>
<p>This ranking minus PA is produced by Wilmingtonwave in 2006. <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/220855-peer-assessment-free-rankings.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/220855-peer-assessment-free-rankings.html</a></p>
<p>USNews rankings MINUS PA Score:
Harvard University 1
Princeton University 1
University of Pennsylvania 3
Yale University 3
Duke University 3
Stanford University 6
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology 6
Washington University in St. Louis 6
Dartmouth College 6
Northwestern University 10
Brown University 10
California Institute of Technology 10
Columbia University 10
University of Notre Dame 10
Rice University 15
Cornell University 15
University of Chicago 17
Johns Hopkins University 17
Emory University 17
Vanderbilt University 17
Tufts University 21
Georgetown University 21
Wake Forest University 23
Carnegie Mellon University 23
University of Virginia 23
Lehigh University 23
Univ. of Southern California 27
University of California-Los Angeles 28
University of Rochester 28
U of North Carolina-Chapel Hill 28
Brandeis University 28
University of California-Berkeley 28
Case Western Reserve Univ. 33
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 34
College of William and Mary 34
Boston College 34
Yeshiva University 34
New York University 38
Tulane University 38
Univ. of California-San Diego 38
Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst. 41
Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison 42
Georgia Institute of Technology 42
Univ. of California-Santa Barbara 42
Syracuse University 42
University of California-Irvine 46
U of Illinois-Urbana Champaign 47
University of Florida 48
University of Washington 49
Pennsylvania State University 50
University of California-Davis 51</p>
<p>versus</p>
<p>USNEWS PA ALONE:</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard, Stanford, MIT</li>
<li>Princeton, Yale</li>
<li>Berkeley</li>
<li>Chicago, Caltech</li>
<li>Penn, Columbia, Cornell, Johns Hopkins</li>
<li>Duke, Michigan</li>
<li>Brown, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Virginia</li>
<li>UCLA
20. UNC, Wisconsin, WUSTL, Carnegie Mellon</li>
<li>Texas, UIUC, Georgia Tech, Rice, Vanderbilt, Georgetown</li>
<li>USC, Notre Dame, Washington</li>
</ol>
<p>^
Princeton has the same PA as Harvard, Stanford, and MIT</p>
<p>lol tied with MIT w/o peer assessment? uhhhh…
i think that just proves that rankings are useless, not that washu is underrated…</p>
<p>for the most part, i think the usefulness of rankings are limited to a range of 5-10 spots. anything more specific than that ends up being very unreliable/subjective</p>
<p>Keep in mind…</p>
<p>Now that WashU gets blamed for waitlisting “overqualified” applicants, every single person on their waitlist insists that they were only waitlisted because WashU is protecting their yield. Thus, the whole thing snowballs into something bigger than it really is.</p>
<p>Nice post from vbball</p>
<p>Penn in 3rd place if you take out PA? all of a sudden I feel myself becoming very anti-PA ;)</p>
<p>Phead:</p>
<p>Looking at it the other way, this is exactly the justification needed for PA (and evidence that statistics aren’t always terribly reliable as predictors of academic quality). Anybody in their right mind knows that WashU isn’t an HYPSM equivalent.</p>
<p>What I’ve always wondered is how WashU is such a highly ranked school, yet not a lot of people know about it (at least from my experience). I didn’t even know this school existed until I came to this site. Many people I know have never even heard of it, or think I’m talking about the University of Washington or George Washington. I don’t plan on applying, but it just seems strange that such a prestigious school can be so unknown to so many people, even in the Midwest.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>How does it prove that the rankings are useless?</p>
<p>Others are trying to prove that WashU is overrated, not underrated…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Notice that you said “i think…”</p>
<p>That in itself is highly questionable and subjective.</p>
<p>I think what you think about what others think is highly questionable and subjective. :D</p>
<p>Those who think that WashU is overrated just because its PA score pulled down its overall score, should check the rest of the rankings.</p>
<p>3) Yale, UPenn, Duke
6) Stanford, MIT, Dartmouth, WUSTL
10) Northwestern, Brown, Caltech, Columbia, Notre Dame</p>
<p>If you guys agreed that WUSTL =/= MIT and Stanford, then how about Dartmouth?
Do you guys agree that MIT and Stanford = Dartmouth?
How bout Yale = UPenn = Duke?
and
Caltech and Columbia = Northwestern, Notre Dame, and Brown?</p>
<p>Dartmouth is underrated, Duke is underrated, Northwestern, Brown, Notre Dame are probably underrated.</p>
<p>WashU is overrated.</p>
<p>My whole argument with USNews rankings without PA scores is to show that hard data can be subject to manipulation and that PA scores matter… a lot.</p>
<p>Without PA scores, WashU would be tied with HYSPM, and UMich/Berkeley and other top publics would drop off the face of the Earth without PA scores bolstering them up. UMich/Berkeley lack the mandate and financial back of rich private universities endowments to funnel resources to bolster their USNews ranking positions…</p>
<p>“Dartmouth is underrated, Duke is underrated, Northwestern, Brown, Notre Dame are probably underrated.”</p>
<p>So in other words you’re saying that:</p>
<p>Dartmouth > MIT and Stanford
Duke > Yale
Brown, Northwestern, and Notre Dame is probably > Caltech and Columbia</p>
<p>^ I never put Dartmouth and MIT/Stanford in the same sentence. </p>
<p>How could you have gone from “PA scores/PA without scores” and jump to the conclusion that I believe Dartmouth**>**MIT/Stanford, and the likes…</p>
<p>I love how we deviated from our discussion about WashU PA scores. </p>
<p>Dartmouth > MIT/Stanford is a totally separate scenario when we are talking about WashU and it’s competitive peer groups. Totally difference scenario dude.</p>
<p>My main argument is that The PA scores of Duke, Northwestern, WashU, Notre Dame, and Brown are not reflective of their TRUE STATURE in terms of USNews hard indicators.</p>
<p>That is true. It’s reflected in the PA scores and USNews rankings without PA scores.</p>
<p>“My main argument is that The PA scores of Duke, Northwestern, WashU, Notre Dame, and Brown are not reflective of their TRUE STATURE in terms of USNews hard indicators.”</p>
<p>“Dartmouth is underrated, Duke is underrated, Northwestern, Brown, Notre Dame are probably underrated.”</p>
<p>USNEWS PA ALONE:</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard, Stanford, MIT</li>
<li>Princeton, Yale</li>
<li>Berkeley</li>
<li>Chicago, Caltech</li>
<li>Penn, Columbia, Cornell, Johns Hopkins</li>
<li>Duke, Michigan</li>
<li>Brown, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Virginia</li>
<li>UCLA</li>
<li>UNC, Wisconsin, WUSTL, Carnegie Mellon</li>
<li>Texas, UIUC, Georgia Tech, Rice, Vanderbilt, Georgetown</li>
<li>USC, Notre Dame, Washington </li>
</ol>
<p>OK, those are from your post. So, let’s see this:</p>
<p>School–> PA ranking only–> Actual ranking
Dartmouth–> #15 –> #11
Northwestern–> #15 –> #12
Notre Dame–> #30 –> #20
Still underrated??</p>
<p>Ok, I’m gonna agree that Brown is underrated and WashU is overrated on the USNews rankings. But I dont think those 3 are underrated. -_-</p>