<p>There are people who think WUSTL is overrated, few who thinks it underrated, few who have no real opinion. If you're interested, can you please explain you perception of WUSTL, and what things it needs to do in order to become a tier 1 (among the likes of HYPS, MIT, Yale, UChicago etc).
Please don't turn this into a bashing thread, and don't post nonsense if you don't really know what your'e talking about (i.e. rumors that you heard but you have nothing to base the truth of it upon).</p>
<p>Probably off-topic, but I recently visited WUStL, and I LOVED it. It just seems perfect: great academics with a laid-back environment. I really don't get why everyone bashes it so much.</p>
<p>i think washu is just where it should be. Not in the top tier like HYP but not too bad either. Some people dont' think its so great...A professor there advised me not to apply there because he didnt' think it was too great. But i think it has decend academics and an awesome campus, although the city isn't too safe...number 1 most dangerous city in the US...but i'll still apply there since it doesn't require an essay :) er...i guess that wasn't objective..hehe</p>
<p>Jeffwun:</p>
<p>It's really very simple. WUSTL needs to upgrade its faculty. It's not that the faculty is bad (FAR from it), but it just doesn't compete, overall, with the faculty at most of the other colleges that tend to finish high in the rankings. </p>
<p>And it may never do so, and that may be perfectly OK.</p>
<p>Faculty members tend to be highly regarded because of their research or the amount and quality of what they publish in their fields. There is a school of thought that the quality of instruction for undergrads is inversely proportional to the reputation of the faculty. Several schools try mightily to do both instruction and research well, but only a few succeed.</p>
<p>So, WUSTL may be about as highly ranked (based on who's doing the ranking) as it will ever be. And that may be perfectly OK.</p>
<p>I think it's even simpler than that -- it's about money. If you want "prestige" you need vast, cubic quantities of money. Money buys top professors, the best facilities, the most creative administrators, and the very best development officials. Olin College of Engineering is a great example of this. They aren't even accredited yet, and they already show up among the most-desired engineering schools. Why? Money. Great gobs of money. Free tuition and creative faculty attracted by all that money have taken the school from zero to popular in unprecedented time. Colleges like MIT and Caltech and Berkeley had to spend a lot of government grant and alumni money for a LONG time to achieve the sort of prominence that Olin got from a big ol' lump of what makes universities great.</p>
<p>It's all about the money. Never forget that, utes.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for your comments. I'll just go through every so often and respond to what some people have said.</p>
<p>19382- I feel the exact same way you do</p>
<p>kcajgnaw- That report about STL being the most dangerous city in the nation is heavily flawed, for more information you can visit studlife.com and read the article in the Friday, Nov 10th issue. Even so, WUSTL is not in the actual city of St. Louis, it is more so in clayton and seperated from the city by Forest Park so any issues in the city aren't indicative of the safety of WUSTL's campus. It is a closed campus with a police department on it, blue lights etc...all the security measures that are taken at other universities</p>
<p>Tarhunt- WUSTL has upgraded its economics faculty heavily. It has recruited several superstarts and now stands to become one of the best econ departments in the nation, so it is definately possibile, imo, for the them to do so in other areas. I do appreciate your comments though.</p>
<p>Rick Tyler- Interesting point. WUSTL's endowment grew by leaps and bounds a few years ago and it has since remained stagnat. They have hired a new chief investment officer and are starting a new entity, the Washington University Investment Management Company. With that being said, WUSTL already has a 4.7 billion dollar endowment and are always upgrading facilities (30 new buildings in the last 10 yrs). Currently there is construction on a new state of the art University Centre and a new building to expand their Law School and house the department of Social sciences. I do hope that WUSTL's endowment does increase and they are able to recruit better professors though.</p>
<p>Thanks for posting, please more comments are welcome</p>
<p>For me, WUSTL is overrated because of its admissions practices. Last year I was accepted at every school I applied to including Columbia and MIT, but waitlisted at WUSTL. The same thing happened to my brother who got into schools including Duke, UPenn, and Brown. I really liked WUSTL, demonstrated alot of interest, and contacted alumni, but was still waitlisted. I'm not bitter though, just questioning, they had every right to reject me. My larger problem comes from the statistics of my high school. In the last 5 years, 59 kids have applied. 13 have been accepted, 3 were rejected, and 43 kids were waitlisted. This seems absolutely ridiculous.</p>
<p>I really liked WUSTL and the environment it provided, and I think it would be a great place to learn in an undergraduate environment. However, I find their admissions practices confusing. I don't imagine it will ever be regarded with the likes of HYPMS, but it has improved a ton in the last decade, so maybe.</p>
<p>I think Wustl's about where it should be, in terms of rankings (however, I think Brown and Northwestern are both underrated and should be higher than Wustl). </p>
<p>It seems to me that Wash U is actively trying to attract both more talented faculty and more talented students, and doing a pretty good job of it. It seems to me that Wash U does have money, and is spending it to try to upgrade itself (for the past several years, they've been tearing down one freshman dorm and building palace-like residences in it's place). </p>
<p>So yes, I agree Wash U needs more talent, and I think that the institution realizes this and is really trying to improve in this area. </p>
<p>Wash U is not bad by any means. The campus is gorgeous, the lab facilities are excellent (especially for the science, their med school is amazing). Wash U just needs to fill up it's pretty pink towers and massive, state of the art labs with a little more talent (Wash U does have talented people now, but they're trying to get even more, which is what they need to do).</p>
<p>Overall, I think Wash U is an excellent place to go to school. A lot of people bash it for being a "poser" or something of the sort. I think this comes from the fact that it's kind of, for lack of a better word, nouveau riche. All these established, elite institutions don't like the fact that they now have to compete with a former midwestern safety school for kids with 4.0 GPAs and stellar SATs. But I think in 20-30 years, Wash U will have a large national reputation (similar to that of Rice or JHU), will be ranked in the top 15-10, and will be considered a peer institution of the top schools. I think this is a good thing; self-improvement is a rather American trait to have. Elitism isn't.</p>
<p>The admissions practices at WUSTL are going to be their downfall, even if they improve faculty and get "gobs" of money. Why? Well, if they continue to waitlist top candidates at the rate they do, the top candidates are going to stop applying. At my daughter's former high school, the guidance counselor has already begun discouraging students from applying to WUSTL and Skidmore, which has similar practices. These two schools have gone up in the ranks, but once the top students stop considering them an option, they're done for.</p>
<p>1) WUStL needs to become need-blind. Immediately.</p>
<p>2) Like Tarhunt said, WUStL needs to lure top faculty using $$. </p>
<p>WUStL has a huge endowment, so it can definitely do this.</p>
<p>Again thank you all for your comments...keep them coming!</p>
<p>OSUforME- I think this is a common misconception of WUSTL. IT seems counterproductive. WUSTL is not gonna deny top students admission so they can get a higher yield. I believe yield is no longer a factor in the rankings and even if it is, its not significant enough to give up the opportunity to get better students, which would attract better professors, which would position them among the top schools more firmly. WUSTL does waitlist a lot students, but that is more so an indication of wanting to accept them but not being able to do so because of space limitations and not because they're playing rankings game. After working in admissions heavily for the past couple of months I can attest to the fact that WashU is really high on their community and look for students that they think will contribute to it. This means that they value stats and interest heavily, but at the end of the day, the decision is going to come down to whether they feel the student can add to their community. If the stats, interest and community potential are in place then the student is more than likely accepted. If the community potential isn't there, then that is when a waitlist might occur. I don't know your individual case or any of those from your school, but a lot of top student get accepted to stop school and rejected/waitlisted at another top school all the time. In all these instances, it usually comes down to if the admissions office sees the person as a fit for the school. The same is true at WUSTL (although I think there is more value placed on it). Thank you very much for your comment, because a lot of people feel like you and I just felt the need to provide a bit more info for people to base their judgments on.</p>
<p>illinois_kid- I agree completely, lol</p>
<p>Momwaitingfornew- Thanks for your comments, I think I addressed them so above.</p>
<p>warblersrule86- I am not sure why WUSTL won't become need-blind. My only guess is that it wants to get better endowment invesment handling first, and finish some of the major construction projects they have to fund or find funding for (university centre, social sciences building, 4 freshman dorms to tear down, new housing complexes in the village, new athletic complex, etc). I might ask one of the Vice-Chancellors about this. How do you think going need-blind would improve the school and/or people's perception of the school?</p>
<p>Kcajgnaw, It sounds strange that a professor told you not to apply because he thinks it isn’t so great. What it isn’t “so great”, the subject he is teaching? And I don’t understand why you are saying that applying to Wash U doesn’t require an essay, because it does.
What is you intent to study?</p>
<p>OSUforME, My S also applied to MIT, Cornell U (engineering) and Carnegie Mellon, and he was accepted, but seems Wash U like him very much, so they offered a very nice merit scholarship and he enrolled there (he is very happy now). I think that admission officers know what they are doing; they can find the right student for them besides the stats.</p>
<p>WUSTL needs to stop destroying trees and stop sending 500 applynow! letters and brochures every 2nd week.
I live in the pacific and they send it through fast-priority mail. Waste of money. However, not a complete waste as they have attracted my parents and delusioned them to thinking that washu really REally loves me and wants me to apply so badly.</p>
<p>lol NoFX. WUSTL sent me tree-loads of paper too, until my mom thought they really loved me, and we visited. During the visit, I interviewed with a student while the entire admissions staff [in the office] fawned over a URM for about an hour. And after the visit, I barely got any paper. Though that's a good thing =P Save the trees!</p>
<p>Yeah, WUSTL needs to stop the crooked admissions practices--waitlisting or rejecting students they think are using them as a safety...you can't predict things like that and it's just going to hurt them in the end. And no non-need-blind college is going to be ranked at the top these days...</p>
<p>
[quote]
How do you think going need-blind would improve the school and/or people's perception of the school?
[/quote]
Need-blind schools can be a turn-off for potential applicants, especially if you're a borderline applicant. It's been said that this only affects about 5% of the applicant pool, but nobody wants to be in that 5%. Many colleges with much smaller endowments (Wake Forest, Hopkins, Vanderbilt, etc.) are need-blind, so WUStL lags behind its peers in this respect. Even Brown, although it has the smallest endowment among the Ivies, became need-blind fairly recently (3-4 years ago).</p>
<p>b4nnd20- I wouldn't call their admissions practicies crooked at all. All they do is admit the students that have good stats and show they want to attend. Its like chosing to eat just steak or to have the same steak with steak sauce on top. Some people can live without the steak sauce, but for other, it just isn't a steak unless you have the sauce. WU just likes to have great students, and on top of that, the same great students who really wanna go to the school. They pour out millions of dollars for students every year, it'd make sense that they'd admit students who show that they will utilize this money and add to the WU community positively. Also, keep in mind, that for evey top student that applies and gets rejected, there is a top student that applied, and show interest and got accepted.</p>
<p>NoFX- All WU is doing is trying to up their name recognition, and they have to do it someway. They can't exactly take an ad out in the paper or run a commerical because thats not the type of advertising top colleges do. All schools send out brochures, and WU definately sends a lot of them out, but doing so has given people a chance to at least consider their amazing programs other things when they would have never even thought to look at WUSTL before. If WUSTL wasn't recruiting top students, people would criticze them the same as people now do for their "marketing" strategies. Its not like the brochures are telling lies or anything. Also, the amount of mail one gets from WUSTL is relative. I recieved a moderate amount from them, but I also recieved a lot of mail (very comparable) from other top schools like Stanford, Yale, Duke, etc. Certain top schools specifically send a lot more mail to certain ethnic groups, athletes, etc because they are trying to recruit...no harm in that.</p>
<p>Jeffwun,</p>
<p>
[quote]
I am not sure why WUSTL won't become need-blind. My only guess is that it wants to get better endowment invesment handling first, and finish some of the major construction projects they have to fund or find funding for (university centre, social sciences building, 4 freshman dorms to tear down, new housing complexes in the village, new athletic complex, etc).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yet, they have money for generous merit-based scholarships. It seems to me they do have money but instead of giving it out to poorer ones that are well-qualified for WashU but are truly in need, they use it to lure those who would likely go to HYPS (some of them are probabaly from wealthy families). I have less problem with WashU's admission oddity than this one. This is about social justice. </p>
<p>
[quote]
How do you think going need-blind would improve the school and/or people's perception of the school?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I think this will help people to think WashU is comfortable with its own skin. A school that's confident about its yield shouldn't feel they have to sacrifice need-based money for merit-based one. Schools should try their best to practice need-blind admission and to meet 100% of students' need BEFORE they consider giving merit-based scholarships.</p>
<p>Sam Lee- I understand your criticisms and I agree with them. While, I am able to see both sides of the coin, I think ultimately the school needs to become need blind. Now, their reason for not doing so is beyond me? As I said before, I will speak with some university officials and at least try to understand why, if not try to affect some sort of change.</p>