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citymom · 03-25-2008, 09:37 AM

Tsengun:
This is not stupid. They have no way out.
They understand that they ARE a third- or fourth- choice match school for many top applicants. It is a common concept now. Instead of having a lower-tier safety where you have a 90%+ chance to be admitted, you can apply to 4 matches where you have 40-60% chance. You will likely get into one of them and probably in two or three. And WUSTL conciously plays into it by having a CommonApp without a supplement and offering full-ride scholarships (ALL their competitors, e.g. Cornell, Northwestern, JHU and UofChicago have very specific supplements and most do not offer free rides).
So WUSTL gets tons of applications but if they just go ahead and accept top 20% of applicants they will have a 10% yield at best. (Their competitors, actully do just that - aceept top 20% applicants and have close to 30% yield because they loose to Ivies but have more kids who prefer them over same-rank competitors: UofChicago is viewed as "intellectual"; Northwestern has superb location and has Chicago area as a feeder; Cornel is an Ivy and both Cornell and JHU have great world rankings).
So to maintain a respectable close to 30% yield, WUSTL has to pick those who are likey to attend from say 50% applicants. But if rejects most of top 20% applicants it will become a joke - a not-yet-there school that rejects almost EVERYONE accepted to Harvard, Princeton and Yale? Who will take them seriousley after that? (this will be obvious at schools sending a lot of kids to Ivies, and someone will publish the statistics). So they waitlist. Accepted to Harvard and waitlisted by another top 10 school? This actually happens all the time, so WUSTL does not look ridiculous.

03-25-2008, 09:37 AM	#37
citymom Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Threads: 15 Posts: 305	Tsengun: This is not stupid. They have no way out. They understand that they ARE a third- or fourth- choice match school for many top applicants. It is a common concept now. Instead of having a lower-tier safety where you have a 90%+ chance to be admitted, you can apply to 4 matches where you have 40-60% chance. You will likely get into one of them and probably in two or three. And WUSTL conciously plays into it by having a CommonApp without a supplement and offering full-ride scholarships (ALL their competitors, e.g. Cornell, Northwestern, JHU and UofChicago have very specific supplements and most do not offer free rides). So WUSTL gets tons of applications but if they just go ahead and accept top 20% of applicants they will have a 10% yield at best. (Their competitors, actully do just that - aceept top 20% applicants and have close to 30% yield because they loose to Ivies but have more kids who prefer them over same-rank competitors: UofChicago is viewed as "intellectual"; Northwestern has superb location and has Chicago area as a feeder; Cornel is an Ivy and both Cornell and JHU have great world rankings). So to maintain a respectable close to 30% yield, WUSTL has to pick those who are likey to attend from say 50% applicants. But if rejects most of top 20% applicants it will become a joke - a not-yet-there school that rejects almost EVERYONE accepted to Harvard, Princeton and Yale? Who will take them seriousley after that? (this will be obvious at schools sending a lot of kids to Ivies, and someone will publish the statistics). So they waitlist. Accepted to Harvard and waitlisted by another top 10 school? This actually happens all the time, so WUSTL does not look ridiculous.