<p>I have haunted this board for a couple years and been posting for a few months, and I can't help but notice there seems to be a very anti-Washington University in St. Louis feeling here. Why? It gets regularly recognized by various websites and publications as a worthy "Ivy wannabe." Do people not like it because of the gigantic PR machine that is their admissions office, for some academic reason, because of the "halo" effect of the medical school, or what?</p>
<p>I just wrote something about this topic in the latest (sigh) underrated or overrated thread. I'll cut and paste here what I said there. But briefly, in my opinion, Wash-U gets beat up for three reasons: (1) their aggressive marketing coupled with a very idiosyncratic admissions office; (2) everybody's preoccupation with the USNWR ranking lists (this does such a disservice to SO many schools ... schools can't be ranked by numbers as if we're talking baseball batting averages ... Wash-U is the same great school it has been since the 1960's, even better because of its incredible resources ... but because it has climbed the hallowed USNWR rankings, it is suddenly a target and not a little known gem); and (3) the same-old East Coast bias that has afflicted UChicago and NU for years and years too -- "it can't be better than "X," it's in the midwest" (PLEASE!).</p>
<p>From my other post:</p>
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Seriously UNDERRATED on CC -- Wash-U, by virtue of it being consistently called OVERRATED and otherwise bashed by people who generally know little about the school itself.</p>
<p>To be blunt, people's problems with an admittedly aggressive marketing program and an idiosyncratic admissions office say nothing about the quality of the education received by those admitted. This has long been an excellent school, something of a hidden gem. Its recent notoriety has brought in gobs of money, better facilities and faculty, and an overall higher caliber of student. The gem is no longer hidden, but many still consider it a gem. A better gauge of underrated vs. overrated comes from talking to alumni and current students. Wash-U alums are almost mooney-like in their positive feelings for their school and back it up with consistently very high alumni donation rates.</p>
<p>This post isn't meant for the skeptics -- let them scoff and continue to use Wash-U as their personal pinatas (where's that tilde when you need one). It's certaintly trendy to bash Wash-U. Instead, this post is meant for anyone currently making their list. Decide on schools based on the academic, educational, and social merits of the school itself, not on often misinformed, or just plain wrong, characterizations. There are plenty of outstanding schools in this country -- depending on what you want in a school, Wash-U is clearly one of them.</p>
<p>P.S. -- I completely agree that Wash-U deserves some lashes for their admissions practices. Prospective students should definitely understand the mined landscape of Wash-U admissions before they venture in. If a student is accepted and matriculates, however, most find it to be a pretty special place.
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<p>WUSTL is a fine school but it is so overrated that many people find it annoying. WUSTL simply has not earned the level of recognition it receives. There are probably ten or fifteen school that are better than WUSTL yet are ranked lower by US News.</p>
<p>ten or fifteen? If we are talking about Umich and UCB, then that comment could apply to all of the top 10-20 schools. Umich and UCB are better than a lot of them IMO. Public schools get no love sometimes.</p>
<p>because their admission office routinely rejects superstars in hopes of increasing their yield, which doesn't even make sense since yield is no longer used for US News rankings!!!</p>
<p>I wasn't aware that WUSTL was getting a bad rap. However, what schools on the USWNR are below it that are so unbelievably better. WUSTL is tied with Northwestern. The next eight schools are: Brown, Cornell, Hopkins, Chicago, Rice, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, and Emory. Someone might be able to make a case that some of these schools are better than WUSTL, but it wouldn't be an overwhelming case. Hey, I'm neutral in this.</p>
<p>of that list right there, there is no way you could argue that washu is flat out better than any of those schools overall....in fact, quite the contrary.</p>
<p>The USNWR rankings exist to make USNWR money every year. They sell magazines and they sell college guides. It was a great idea for them. Now Newsweek is coming out with a list each year ranking the nation's high schools. </p>
<p>How can the rankings mean anything when the schools jump around from #25 to #17 to #19 each year. If the rankings had meaning, wouldn't it take a school longer than a year to go from #25 to #17?</p>
<p>The rankings don't have meaning to any one individual because that individual has his own subjective value system. If someone wants a school with a warm climate, then Emory outranks Harvard. If you ranked the school for biology majors, it would be different than ranking them for history majors.</p>
<p>Honestly, the only people who care are the people who have to rank everything.</p>
<p>When my son was little, he would rank everything. He would rank the Power Rangers in the order that he liked them. He would rank the Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles in the order he liked them. The joke is that he once told me that he had ranked family member in the order he liked them. His mother was first, then the dog, and then me. :)</p>
<p>Rampant Rankism!!</p>
<p>"because their admission office routinely rejects superstars in hopes of increasing their yield, which doesn't even make sense since yield is no longer used for US News rankings!!!"</p>
<p>you mean MASSIVE WAITLISTING right? haha.</p>
<p>People resent their tactics. They send many mailings to students they know they will never accept. The mailings seem personal and give kids a feeling they are really wanted by this school. Then the school waitlists almost everyone they don't accept.</p>
<p>I would bet if schools had to disclose marketing budgets, we would clearly see that this is a school that created a very expensive marketing campaign that succeeded in upping it's ratings.</p>
<p>zagat - funny that you mention that...I remember getting mail from them in 10th grade. Of course, I had no idea what Washu was so I didnt pay much attention to it.</p>
<p>WashU is a great school, however, their marketing scheme is a bit too agressive and in some cases, their advertisment is misleading. One time, someone asked me about their journalism and film "majors" but that person couldn't find much information about it although he saw it listed somewhere. Well, it turned out all WashU has are just couple related classes through their University College (almost like a extension course) yet they claim people can "pursue studies in film and journalism" there. Also, when WashU lists their ranked "departments", they list subdisciplines to make it look longer than it actually because they really lack departments that are actually nationally ranked. For example, their english dept isn't really highly ranked but they would list "creative writing" which isn't really a department and most schools don't do that (in fact, most top schools are comfortable enough to not to have a list in such details).</p>
<p>Back when I was an applicant, Wash U was considered a near-safety for Ivy-type applicants. A good school, but frequently someone's third choice or lower. Just below U Rochester. Their yield reflected this; it was abysmal.</p>
<p>Since that time apparently they've come in to a good bit of money. And apparently they've used some of this to good end, to materially and actually improve their academic standing. But apparently they weren't satisfied with waiting until these actual improvements were recognized by the "world"; they had to go out and aggressively launch massive marketing campaigns to deliberately manipulate their market perception.</p>
<p>There is something undignified about this deliberate manipulation effort, I think, in some people's minds. There is sort of a "nouveau-riche" odor to it. The blue collar worker who strikes an oil well, and then tries to buy and manipulate his way into the stuffiest old-money country club. Instead of waiting to get nominated by someone, in the natural order of things.</p>
<p>However they did it though, it appears to me to be working. My own child was put off by something about Wash U, and didn't apply. Subsequently though she visited some friends there and came away being fairly impressed. The students from her school who are going there next year are impressive kids. Pretty much the same caliber as the kids who are going to Northwestern. If we lived on the East Coast instead of the midwest I think a lot of these same kids would be heading for Cornell.</p>
<p>I don't agree with the "midwest bias" argument. I think Chicago and Northwestern have appropriate stature on the east coast. It's Wash U specifically that has the issue.</p>
<p>Monydad~
Thank you for your considered and well-stated position. I don't agree with most of it, but that's what a Board like this is for. I was never an applicant, but I know many who were in the 60's, 70's, 80's, and beyond. For many of the top people, I don't believe Wash-U was a third-choice, more like a second-choice primarily because of the better admissions rate. For those who spent time in the pre-USNWR studying the relative strengths and weaknesses of universities, Wash-U was a high-quality backup to some other schools who weren't necessarily better, but were definitely better known. Hence, Wash-U's reputation as an unknown gem, a diamond in the rough. I completely agree about the aggressive and somewhat distasteful nature of their marketing, but the characterization of noveau-riche and blue collar strikes me as exactly the kind of stigma that Wash-U had to deal with for an entire generation. They had the quality, they had the funds, they had the beautiful campus, why does marketing necessarily have an odor (admitting that there can sometimes be too much) and why harp on about their tactics being manipulation, while to some degree virtually every institution engages in these or similar tactics. Isn't the problem really a USNWR system that attempts to lock a school into a number -- no matter its quality -- and simply begs for any school who isn't satisfied with a magazine saying who and what they are to take matters into their own hands to change perception. The college scene should not be a country club -- it's big business.</p>
<p>As for the midwest bias argument, I completely disagree here too. I didn't blame midwest bias on Wash-U's entire negative rep, but it's a contributing factor. Many STRONGLY believe that Chicago and NU would have been much more highly regarded if the campus were simply beamed approximately 900-1000 miles to the East. In other words, they are highly regarded, but I don't agree that they are "appropriately" regarded. Similarly, schools like Carleton and Grinnell -- heck even Stanford and Pomona -- have suffered from this bias for years. Obviously this is opinion, but I know many who share this opinion as you undoubtedly would know many more who share yours.</p>
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There is sort of a "nouveau-riche" odor to it.
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<p>WashU is only the most recent in a long line of nouveau-riche universities using large endowments from local business interests to build a quality school. </p>
<p>Stanford comes to mind on the West Coast, although the blatantly nouveau period was long enough ago that people have forgotten.</p>
<p>Duke is another. </p>
<p>Emory, with $4 billion in Coca-Cola endowment is a third example.</p>
<p>Nothin' wrong with using a big endowment to build a quality school. That's how it's done. Compare the USNEWS lists with the list of top per student endowments.</p>
<p>I do not know "many who share my opinion". I don't talk to people about this.</p>
<p>My opinion is just my own, formed from living most of my life on the East Coast, attending a NYC private school where many applied to selective colleges, and myself attending college on the east coast.</p>
<p>At the time, I considered Chicago, Northwestern, and Pomona for that matter, to be essentially peer institutions to mine, based on the quality of kids I knew who went to these schools from my area. Relatively few people applied to the midwest schools from my area, but that's for geographical reasons, not because they thought the schools were any worse than they were. Wash U, in contrast, was used primarily as a safety. </p>
<p>Carleton and Grinnell were not looked down upon, or thought of as safety schools; they were just relatively unknown. Not so Wash U. Wash U was very well known there. As was U Rochester.</p>
<p>This is a great thread, but I'm wondering who knows this stuff. The idea of there being resentment of WUSTL is perfectly understandable to me. When you hear dubious marketing practices combined with success, does anyone else think of Bill Gates?</p>
<p>I would say, though, that we need more top prestigious schools because the ones that we have don't have enough room for everyone. The general public has a set of Ultimate Colleges in their heads. About 1.2 million people graduate from high school every year and every kid (and their parents) who has a 4.0 and a 1450 SAT score think that they are destined for the Ivy League or Stanford or MIT. They don't know UChicago and they probably think that the University of Pennsylvania is a state school. They just know that little Becky is the top student in the county for the last 10 years, and she's definitely going to the Ivy League. 50000 out of 1.2 million is 0.4%. Obviously, the lottery system is working at the Ultimate Colleges and I think we should hope that WUSTL, Duke, Emory, and other colleges move into the Ultimate Colleges category to take some of the pressure off.</p>
<p>Monydad~
Understood. For you, Wash-U was not a peer institution to the top East Coast schools, instead being a good school along the lines of Rochester. From that perspective your perjorative and loaded terms like "noveau-riche," "odor," and "undignified" makes sense when applied to their marketing efforts to get their name out. From your perspective Wash-U is a safety school and should act like one. Fine.</p>
<p>Only, from the perspective of many, myself included, Wash-U is an outstanding school based on its own merits and has every right to act as something more than a safety school. If you look at it from their perspective, that being that they were an outstanding school saddled with poor name recognition because of many reasons including a vanilla sounding name with built-in geographical ambiguity, then it makes perfect sense to market with a fury in order to get the name out. And it has unquestionably worked. Their marketing/admissions practices brings in the quality applicants. An already excellent school is only improving in every way -- facilities, faculty, programs, and overall student quality. And this is bad how?</p>
<p>When my friends and close family were all applying to schools in the late 60's to early 80's, Wash-U was perceived by our midwestern sensibilities as something of a LAC-university hybrid -- quality that ranked with Chicago, NU, and Michigan, but the perception of a friendlier, more closely knit environment. You didn't consider Wash-U to be a peer institution to the elite East Coast schools -- most of us considered Wash-U's peer group to be the aforementioned midwest schools and schools like Penn, Cornell, Brown, etc. Same calories, different flavor.</p>
<p>Today, my son is at Wash-U. By coincidence, most of his good friends at Wash-U are from the East Coast -- lots from DC/Maryland, Philly, Jersey, NYC, and some from Mass and Fla. Many of these kids selected Wash-U over schools like Cornell, Penn, Columbia, JHU, NU, and Michigan. I believe that Wash-U's marketing thrust was clearly (and calculatingly) designed to shift perspective of Wash-U's peer position on the East Coast to what it had long been in the midwest. I think they've succeeded (albeit left some with a bad taste in their mouths, but so have schools like Duke and Penn).</p>