Iwantcollegehelp

Of course I know this school is awesome but are they receiving many of their applications in their area?

ilovebagels

Highly effective marketing

palmalk

Your first question: WUSTL is ranked #12 by USN&WR, and has been at that level for a number of years. I'm not sure that your statement about not being the most well-known school is so true anymore.

Your second question makes little sense - what do you mean?

applicannot

I think WUSTL is pretty well-known. There are very, very few household name colleges - HYP are household names, but prior to my junior year I could not even name the other five. Outside of prep schools, competitie public schools, and high school juniors and seniors, very few colleges are "well known". HYP and the local state schools are really the only "well known schools". There are plenty of schools like Dartmouth, Vanderbilt, Emory, Rice, etc. that probably don't qualify as "well known" but still have very low acceptance rates. Those schools are certainly well known among the upper tier of applying students, just like the University of Bridgeport and other schools are well known to the lower tier of applying students.

Johnson181

Random fact: only 10% of the 2013 engineers are from St. Louis. There are actually more international engineers.
So that could debunk the assumption in your second question.

silverturtle

I live about 2 hours from WUSTL, and I'd be surprised if even 2% of the student body at my high school has even heard of the school.

Jason110

silverturtle,

Yes, but I'm sure they've heard of SIU-Carbondale or SIU-Edwardsville, where many might go.

How many here on college confidential have heard of Millikin University?

There are a lot of colleges and universities in this country. The top tier students usually know the top tier schools, and the lower tier colleges are better well known to other students.

Just from talking to people, many (though not all) people who apply to top research universities (like WashU, Northwestern, MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, etc.) don't know the likes of Amherst, Swarthmore, Bowdoin, Wellesley, Williams, or Middlebury. If you asked many of these folks, they would be hard pressed to name more than a few "top liberal arts colleges."

Like I said, it depends on what circles you plan to stay in. For example, Pretty much everybody in the biological/biomedical sciences has heard of WashU and it has a good reputation. If you are going into that, name recognition won't be an issue.

Every nationally ranked school has difficulty attracting top tier local students. I know more than a few Boston students who have no interest in Harvard, MIT, BC, Tufts, or BU whatsoever. Same deal in St. Louis with WashU. These schools try really hard to recruit next door.

I don't agree with "many of their applications in their area." If you mean that students who go to WashU are MO/IL residents primarily, I suggest you look at the map of where students come from (there's one in the viewbook). It's quite geographically diverse. There's a large East Coast contingent for sure.

ST2

silverturtle - I guess that does not say a lot for your HS.

flyingllama

and because they don't require a supplement to the common application

= more people applying for the heck of it

vbball90

When I applied, Wash U did require a supplement. I checked the admissions site, and it is still required. It's called the Pre-Application. The only difference is that it doesn't require an additional essay specific for Wash U.

I applied to a handful of schools like Wash U that also didn't require an essay or short answers on their supplement. It was still like 4 pages long, though. I remember that Harvard and Vanderbilt did not have essays or short answers. Most schools that do require a supplement only have an additional question stating "what about our school appeals to you."

NOT having a supplement WOULD be a factor why a school might receive more applications. However, provided that all schools have a supplement, I honestly don't believe that there are many kids who choose to apply to a school based on the length of the supplement.

BearCub

"and because they don't require a supplement to the common application

= more people applying for the heck of it "


Dartmouth College also doesnt require a "supplement" to the common application...So their low acceptance rate is simply because ppl are applying to that school just for the heck of it as it is the least troublesome ivy to apply to?

Don_Quixote

I know that I, for one, definitely scrapped some schools that required significant supplements because of the supplements. (I was using the Common App, so I could afford to do some blanket applications). But clearly, the fact that Dartmouth and WashU are both very good schools is the primary factor in their low acceptance rates, along with the fact that they can't/won't accept as many students as public universities...

But I agree, it's more the "extra essay" than the supplement itself that turns people off. And WashU doesn't have an extra essay required...

omega007

WUSTL is well known for its med school

Proud Dad

WUSTL has an exemplary reputation "back-east" where the majority of the "brand-name" colleges and U's are. It goes way back to the last century when many colleges had Jewish-student quotas and WUSTL refused to participate in such blatant discrimination. That certainly endeared them to a significant population of liberal Easterners, Jews and non-Jews, and that reputation continued to fuel the migration of some of the best students from the East to WUSTL. Its reputation for strong academics, smart students, and an open learning environment is well-deserved.

Kudos to WUSTL.

lockn

Dartmouth requires a peer recommendation. This is a legitimate question. WUSTL has a good reputation among people who have heard of it, but it's not very well-known among the general population. I would say the same thing about Chicago, and they get way less applicants. They also don't send tons of letters to everyone. I'm not sure why everyone is trying to "defend" WUSTL from this because I think it speaks well about the effectiveness of the administration.