<p>I didn't realize so many people had opinions about this. It seems like, depending on who you talk to, the reason WUSTL doesn't get as much respect as other high-ranked universities is either (1) jealousy from East Coast schools who don't want their image tarnished by a school which can compete academically but whose students and staff aren't perceived as stodgy, or (2) anger over underhanded admissions tactics that might be giving prospies false information. I don't know much about WUSTL, that's why I started the thread, but it seems to me like (1) is the more likely reason. After all, doesn't every school (at least private ones) inflate their image in brochures and rankings and such to sell more kids on the fact that they should give them between $30,000 and $40,000 a year for four years to get a degree which could be obtained from an in-state public for more than 75% less, in most cases?</p>
<p>I agree with Dude. </p>
<p>I see a lot of people in my midwest town turned off by WUSTL because of the low acceptance rate. They expect WUSTL to act like a "safety" and accept every 1400/1500 that comes their way. Somehow they resent that WUSTL has the audacity to act like other selective schools.</p>
<p>I also have no problem with their marketing - especially since in my mind they live up to it.</p>
<p>They accept pretty much every 1500 that comes along and many 1400s, too. In my mind, this is still a back up for ivy applicants, and where my kids are concerned, there are better ones. They can spend money and create better stats, but it's still a school few have heard of in St. Louis.</p>
<p>Dudedilgence:</p>
<p>"Understood".</p>
<p>Not completely, it seems.</p>
<p>"From your perspective Wash-U is a safety school and should act like one."</p>
<p>No this is not my perspective. I think it WAS that type of school "back in the day". But the students I see going there now are top-notch. I thought I said this....</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."</p>
<p>I don't disagree. I think some changes have occurred over time that had this result, though.</p>
<p>"most of us considered Wash-U's peer group to be the aforementioned midwest schools and schools like Penn, Cornell, Brown, etc."</p>
<p>Well I doubt many people who attended one of those schools, myself included, felt likewise at the time. I'll bet some of them do now, though.</p>
<p>A few years ago, when #1 started looking at schools, I photocopied some stats pages from an early '70s Cass & Birnbaum book. I doubt I copied the Wash U admissions stats from there, but I'll look around and see if I've got it and publish the results for a few of the schools that you mentioned. Please feel free to do likewise. I think we can settle the historical discussion from that. For what it's worth.</p>
<p>OK I don't have the sheets, but I saved the data. This is from Cass & Birnbaum, 1971 or 1972.</p>
<p>School Average SAT %admitted %enrolled</p>
<p>Brown 1319 24 53
Cornell (A&S) 1342 36 41
U Chicago 1308 58 54
Carleton 1298 61 48
Pomona 1287 35 49
U Penn 1273 41 51
Northwestern 1255 52 49
U Rochester 1247 64 38
Washington U 1219 81 36</p>
<p>Yes you read this correctly. Wash U accepted 81% of its applicants in that year, according to the guidebook. And its yield and average SAT scores were the lowest of any of these previously-referenced schools. By a margin that I consider significant, in most cases.</p>
<p>Monydad~</p>
<p>
[quote]
"Understood".
Not completely, it seems.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Okay, let's not get snippy. You know or reasonably should have known that my use of the word "understood" was synonymous with the jivier -- "I hear you man." I clearly did not mean "I agree" ... and I don't.</p>
<p>
[quote]
"From your perspective Wash-U is a safety school and should act like one."
No this is not my perspective. I think it WAS that type of school "back in the day". But the students I see going there now are top-notch. I thought I said this....
[/quote]
</p>
<p>What I "understood" was that I "heard YOUR opinion" ... from your perspective ... with your background. Period. My opinion is different. My very best friend in 1976 was pre-med all the way. His older brother had gone to Brown. His father was on faculty at Northwestern Medical School. He was elated to go to Wash U for undergrad and later to Northwestern Medical School (he didn't get into Wash-U Medical School). He turned down Brown, Cornell, and NU. I knew many kids from the midwest in that era who had similar experiences and considered Wash-U to be an unrecognized and underrated gem. Perhaps on the East Coast that was the prevailing impression of Wash-U. I can't and won't speak to that. But, in my opinion, while the average midwesterner didn't know a thing about Wash-U in the 60's - 80's, those "in the know" generally thought very highly of it -- especially in the sciences.</p>
<p>Find whatever "rating" you want. I've admitted that Wash-U had a "ratings problem" and an "identity issue" during this time frame. That's precisely why they went through the steps they did to bring their perceived quality up to the quality experienced by those who knew the school. But you're arguing with the wrong person -- I think college rankings are complete bunk.</p>
<p>Good times arguing here with you M-Dad. Reminds me a lot of when I had to defend being a Phi Beta Kappa English grad from the University of Illinois with all of my East Coast law school classmates. We've got an entirely different sensibility about this. I'm not trying to convince you about Wash-U's quality, either in the past or right now. You simply may want to consider that what you knew or thought you knew about Wash-U in the past might have been seriously lacking and what you know about the quality of today's Wash-U (ironically fueled in part by USNWR and the marketing which you and others bemoan) might simply be new awareness to you of something that many already knew (for 20-30 years). Anyway, we've gone about as far with this as we can. Thanks for your particular insights.</p>
<p>"You simply may want to consider that what you knew or thought you knew about Wash-U in the past might have been seriously lacking "</p>
<p>I have refreshed my recollection; see my post#25 above.
Based on re-review of this data I believe my recollection was correct, in this particular instance.</p>
<p>Just saw your posted data. You want to look at these statistics for the purpose of contending that Wash-U was simply a safety school? Okay. But I think that's misusing statistics in the same way that USNWR does. SAT scores and admission rates are interesting, but that's it. UChicago's admissions rate is much lower than one would expect; so is Michigan's; so are the all-girls schools. Niche schools often are. They're self-selecting. Or they have other agendas. Or they have to deal with certain obstacles other schools don't (Wash-U's lack of name recognition; Michigan's public status). I don't purport to be a Wash-U defender or apologist. I got into this thread simply to explain why it might have this supposed "bad rep." I've given my opinion (and more).</p>
<p>Hmm the all-girls schools, at the time...</p>
<p>Wellesley 44 55 1293
Bryn Mawr 43 58 1315
Barnard 65 48 1277
Smith 49 55 1273</p>
<p>I don't know where this is going, but you have to add 100 points to SAT scores from the early 1970 because the College Board recentered the average SAT score after that. I'd have to look up what year.</p>
<p>There are a lot of people who got out of the Army in 1945 and walked into Harvard on the GI Bill with pretty much no questions asked. The ultra selectivity started in the mid 1970's because of the baby boomers going to college and the public defined what a prestigious school was as only being Ivy League. Yes, WUSTL used to be easier to get into. So did everywhere. Relatively speaking, WUSTL has moved up more than the schools already at the top in 1970.</p>
<p>Wash U is a fine institution but no respectful college should have to market the way they do. We could have filled up 2 boxes with mail, postcards, handwritten notes from Wash U. My S got into many colleges rated simarlarly and higher and just finished his 1st year at Pomona. He was waitlisted along with all of his peers from his HS who got into colleges such as Stanford, MIT, Duke. He did not expect to get into all his colleges he applied to but the amount of mail he recieved,( he also got calls from the coach every other week for a year.) led him to believe he was wanted. Again if he had not gotten so much attention a waitlist would not have been surprising. As an aside Pomona sent out nothing except the bare minimum, 1 guidebook, an app.until after he sent his deposit. However, the marketing seems to have helped Wash U get noticed. Again, I think academically it is a great college and I have respect for the students and academia, just not the marketing philosophy! Now that they are more well known maybe they will back down.</p>
<p>OT: Actually selectivity has ebbed and flowed over time. Admissions rates in the late 80s were pretty slack, I believe.</p>
<p>And it is not more selective everyplace, or at least it wasn't when I looked at this a few years ago. The very top schools have indeed become hyper-competitive ("rich get richer"), but the admissions rates at a number of somewhat selective LACs actually were not much different in 2003, vs. 1972, and some were worse.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I don't know where this is going, but you have to add 100 points to SAT scores from the early 1970 because the College Board recentered the average SAT score after that. I'd have to look up what year.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The re-centering took place in 1996. It's not as simple as adding points because the recentering of the verbal and math were different and the adjustments to each depended on where the scores fell on the scale. </p>
<p>In it's historical factbook, Swarthmore gives their 1995 SATs two-ways (pre-recentering and post-recentering) for comparison.</p>
<p>There median verbal PRE was 650. The same test scores were 710 on the new scale.</p>
<p>Median math on the old scale was 700. 690 after recentering.</p>
<p>National average that year went from 428 to 504 for verbal and from 482 to 506 for math.</p>
<p>BTW, to add to Monydad's list:</p>
<p>In 1970, Swat's median SATs were 1357. Average SATs were 1323. Acceptance rate was 23%. Yield was 57%.</p>
<p>The high point for selectivity from the original baby-boom was about 1970-71. The number of high school grads plummeted after that for quite a while and acceptance rates went up accordingly.</p>
<p>A year or two later it was 1345, 18%, 57%. Cooper Union & Yale admitted 17%. But my purpose was not to list random schools, just those referenced by DudeDiligence in comparison to Wash U.</p>
<p>ArizonaMom~
My wife jokes that I was probably the first person to sign-up for the National "Do Not Call Registry"; I also rarely let a piece of junk mail enter the house, instead tossing it into the recycle bin. Nobody hates junk mail and aggressive marketing more than I do. Yet, to say that "no respectful college should have to market the way they do" is awfully harsh. They clearly felt that they needed to market in a particular way. Distancing yourself from your distaste for it, it's clearly worked for them. I'm sure they recognize that many would bristle and some would think them disrespectful or worse. On the other hand, their institution continues to thrive and they matriculate a class which is largely very happy to be there (sometimes a difficult thing for a school to accomplish when many consider to see them as an Ivy-safety).</p>
<p>I think fairness does dictate that another part of Wash-U's marketing/admissions practices should be addressed -- everyone I know has found them to be professional, organized, responsive, and friendly as can be. While admissions office "dog and pony shows" aren't necessarily representative of the school as a whole or the way students are treated once they matriculate (although at Wash-U the positive way students are treated has long been a major plus for the school), it says something about a school when they bother to treat you well. Or does it say something about a school that fails to treat you well? My daughter had amazing and highly personalized meetings with high-ranking members of certain departments at Swarthmore, but the admissions office couldn't have been more stuffy and pretentious. Following an information session in a near empty admissions office, she asked at the desk whether she could say hello to the officer who had led the session (who happened to be our regional representative). "Oh no ... we don't do that ... do you have an appointment with her ... no? ... i don't understand then ... you'll have to make an appointment." Puh-leaze. And my daughter didn't write-off Swarthmore because of the arrogance of this woman; she simply wondered why this woman would be a point-person for an outstanding college. And then I recall walking out of a 400-500 person info session at Harvard, surrounded by people chuckling and shaking their head at the arrogance and elitism that accompanied the answer of virtually every question answered at the Info Session. What does this say about Harvard? What do you get if you mix an elephant with a rhinoceros? El-if-I-know. But, Wash-U's customer friendly and responsive admissions office should be considered together with the bulk mailings and the other practices. And all of the above should be understood to be something completely separate from the university as a whole.</p>
<p>P.S. -- My daughter had a wonderful visit at Pomona and was treated very well by their Admissions Office ... they seem to do a good job of offering elite academics without taking themselves too seriously. Pomona is one of her favorites.</p>
<p>Dudedilegence,
I actually agree with you that Wash U is a great school and students are very happy there, didn't mean to come across as harsh, I just wish they would tone their marketing down a notch to not mislead students but then again to be fair, if they had accepted and not waitlisted my S I probably would not have noticed as much.</p>
<p>Zagat wrote: "They accept pretty much every 1500 that comes along and many 1400s, too."</p>
<p>As far as I know, WUSTL has never published an acceptance rate table by SAT score.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the current range of SAT scores indicates an average score over 1430 - higher than several of the Ivy League schools that WUSTL is supposed to be a "safety" for.</p>
<p>SAT I - Verbal Range (25-75%): 660-740
SAT I - Math Range (25-75%): 690-780 </p>
<p>My guess is that a 1500, while having a potentially strong application, is far from a lock. That makes WUSTL no different than other top-tier schools.</p>