<p>I imagine the number of students that have to take entry level English is so high there are TA’s of course. Most schools like Wash U have that. I think this is getting off the original intent of the post.</p>
<p>My Writing 1 course was taught my a grad student.</p>
<p>But I actually thought that that was preferable–he was a lot closer to our age, he understood our pop culture references, and he was just a chill guy in general who was helpful and had a lot of time for us.</p>
<p>That has been my only experience with a TA/grad student teaching the class.</p>
<p>Yeah, again this is supposed to be 101 reasons to attend Wash U…I think for a research university Wash U has an extremely small % of classes taught by TA’s. OK?</p>
<p>Daughter visited this weekend - I drove and spent time with a friend exploring the area.</p>
<ol>
<li> St. Louis has some fabulous food. The Hill, Ted Drewes, Tin Cup. Also the amazing Missouri Bakery with the best cheesecake I’ve ever eaten.</li>
</ol>
<p>OK, ok (#2 has been revised) - </p>
<ol>
<li>The architecture of the buildings is classically gothic and beautiful.</li>
<li>Big university resources, smaller LAC-style attention to students (and AN EXTREMELY SMALL % OF CLASSES TAUGHT BY TAs - and when they are taught by TAs/Grad students this seems to be a good thing - e.g., the Writing 1 class).</li>
<li>Academic Flexibility – Easy to switch schools within WashU and to double major/minor.</li>
<li>Amazing pre-professional programs and resources, especially for pre-meds through the renowned WUSTL medical center</li>
<li>The quality of your peers</li>
<li>Some of the best dorms in the country</li>
<li>Some of the best food for a university</li>
<li>Genuine Midwestern friendliness and helpfulness</li>
<li>Lack of cut-throat competitiveness amongst students, more collaboration</li>
<li>Easy access to metro and busing (FREE!)</li>
<li>2nd best DIII sports school in the United States</li>
<li>Professors are more undergrad-focused than other top research universities</li>
<li>Undergrads have limitless research opportunities.</li>
<li>Beautiful campus (where students are playing ultimate frisbee, football, or in hammocks on the quads).</li>
<li>Forest park across the street (HUGE park with free museums and such).</li>
<li>The Loop (great food and shopping) within walking distance of the university.</li>
<li>Humongous shopping complexes not too far away (by car, Clayton area?)</li>
<li>3 large hospitals within the area.</li>
<li>Exceptional academic advising</li>
<li>Amazing diversity of the student body</li>
<li>Abundance of outstanding prearranged extracurricular activities available to student body (tutoring h.s. students, hospital volunteering, etc.)</li>
<li>Amazing merit scholarship opportunities not found at any school of WashU’s caliber.</li>
<li>Central United States location that allows for relatively easy access from both the East and West Coast.</li>
<li>Hammocks all over campus. 'Nuff said.</li>
<li>Loads of brand new buildings and a strong commitment to construction and development…</li>
<li>St. Louis’s fabulous music scene.</li>
<li>Crazy huge endowment that allows for lots of free trips to campus and subsidized FOCUS excursions and everything a student could want.</li>
<li>Summer excursions like ArtSci Weekends and FSAP that allow students to get acclimated to campus before Orientation.</li>
<li>Awesome Pre-O’s!</li>
<li>Residential colleges that allow freshman to have connections to sophmores.</li>
<li>Really nice programs for frosh like FOCUS and Freshman Seminars and MBB, Text and Tradition, Medicine in Society…</li>
<li>They send you a lot of mail and you feel really good, especially when it’s priority and you’re like “OMG they spend $4.95 on ME!”</li>
<li>Outstanding Financial Aid</li>
<li>St. Louis has some fabulous food. The Hill, Ted Drewes, Tin Cup. Also the amazing Missouri Bakery with the best cheesecake I’ve ever eaten. </li>
<li> Involved and caring students (hirako, don_quixote, johnson181, balancedhelium, etc.) and parents/others (midwest parent; st2, fallenchemist; palmalk, etc.)</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li>WILD (Kid Cudi and the Black Keys in a few weeks!)</li>
</ol>
<p>LOL, thanks for the shout out palmalk.</p>
<p>Mom of twins - Cool that you found Ted Drewes!! awesome.</p>
<ol>
<li>The architecture of the buildings is classically gothic and beautiful.</li>
<li>Big university resources, smaller LAC-style attention to students (and AN EXTREMELY SMALL % OF CLASSES TAUGHT BY TAs - and when they are taught by TAs/Grad students this seems to be a good thing - e.g., the Writing 1 class).</li>
<li>Academic Flexibility – Easy to switch schools within WashU and to double major/minor.</li>
<li>Amazing pre-professional programs and resources, especially for pre-meds through the renowned WUSTL medical center</li>
<li>The quality of your peers</li>
<li>Some of the best dorms in the country</li>
<li>Some of the best food for a university</li>
<li>Genuine Midwestern friendliness and helpfulness</li>
<li>Lack of cut-throat competitiveness amongst students, more collaboration</li>
<li>Easy access to metro and busing (FREE!)</li>
<li>2nd best DIII sports school in the United States</li>
<li>Professors are more undergrad-focused than other top research universities</li>
<li>Undergrads have limitless research opportunities.</li>
<li>Beautiful campus (where students are playing ultimate frisbee, football, or in hammocks on the quads).</li>
<li>Forest park across the street (HUGE park with free museums and such).</li>
<li>The Loop (great food and shopping) within walking distance of the university.</li>
<li>Humongous shopping complexes not too far away (by car, Clayton area?)</li>
<li>3 large hospitals within the area.</li>
<li>Exceptional academic advising</li>
<li>Amazing diversity of the student body</li>
<li>Abundance of outstanding prearranged extracurricular activities available to student body (tutoring h.s. students, hospital volunteering, etc.)</li>
<li>Amazing merit scholarship opportunities not found at any school of WashU’s caliber.</li>
<li>Central United States location that allows for relatively easy access from both the East and West Coast.</li>
<li>Hammocks all over campus. 'Nuff said.</li>
<li>Loads of brand new buildings and a strong commitment to construction and development…</li>
<li>St. Louis’s fabulous music scene.</li>
<li>Crazy huge endowment that allows for lots of free trips to campus and subsidized FOCUS excursions and everything a student could want.</li>
<li>Summer excursions like ArtSci Weekends and FSAP that allow students to get acclimated to campus before Orientation.</li>
<li>Awesome Pre-O’s!</li>
<li>Residential colleges that allow freshman to have connections to sophmores.</li>
<li>Really nice programs for frosh like FOCUS and Freshman Seminars and MBB, Text and Tradition, Medicine in Society…</li>
<li>They send you a lot of mail and you feel really good, especially when it’s priority and you’re like “OMG they spend $4.95 on ME!”</li>
<li>Outstanding Financial Aid</li>
<li>St. Louis has some fabulous food. The Hill, Ted Drewes, Tin Cup. Also the amazing Missouri Bakery with the best cheesecake I’ve ever eaten. </li>
<li>Involved and caring students (hirako, don_quixote, johnson181, balancedhelium, etc.) and parents/others (midwest parent; st2, fallenchemist; palmalk, etc.)</li>
<li>WILD (Kid Cudi and the Black Keys in a few weeks!)</li>
<li> Award winning and AMAZING a capella groups</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li>The best dressed university chancellor in the country who has a bowling alley in his house!</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li>The Bunny. Enough said.</li>
</ol>
<p>What the heck is the bunny?..I always hear references to it</p>
<p>It’s this really disturbing statue of a bunny that WashU got to keep when the sculptor died and the wife told them they could keep it. There’s two in St. Louis and one in D.C., I believe. Here it is:</p>
<p>h t t p : / / f o r u m s . t r a v e l . c o m / p h o t o s / s h o w p h o t o . p h p ? p h o t o = 1 1 5 2 6</p>
<p>The bunny is simply pure awesomeness. Epic, in my opinion.</p>
<p>I actually kind of like it, in an odd, odd way. :)</p>
<p>lawl!, that is a disturbing statue. Couldn’t they have made it a little less scary?</p>
<p>multicultural weekend for pre-frosh should be on this list!</p>
<ol>
<li>The architecture of the buildings is classically gothic and beautiful.</li>
<li>Big university resources, smaller LAC-style attention to students (and AN EXTREMELY SMALL % OF CLASSES TAUGHT BY TAs - and when they are taught by TAs/Grad students this seems to be a good thing - e.g., the Writing 1 class).</li>
<li>Academic Flexibility – Easy to switch schools within WashU and to double major/minor.</li>
<li>Amazing pre-professional programs and resources, especially for pre-meds through the renowned WUSTL medical center</li>
<li>The quality of your peers</li>
<li>Some of the best dorms in the country</li>
<li>Some of the best food for a university</li>
<li>Genuine Midwestern friendliness and helpfulness</li>
<li>Lack of cut-throat competitiveness amongst students, more collaboration</li>
<li>Easy access to metro and busing (FREE!)</li>
<li>2nd best DIII sports school in the United States</li>
<li>Professors are more undergrad-focused than other top research universities</li>
<li>Undergrads have limitless research opportunities.</li>
<li>Beautiful campus (where students are playing ultimate frisbee, football, or in hammocks on the quads).</li>
<li>Forest park across the street (HUGE park with free museums and such).</li>
<li>The Loop (great food and shopping) within walking distance of the university.</li>
<li>Humongous shopping complexes not too far away (by car, Clayton area?)</li>
<li>3 large hospitals within the area.</li>
<li>Exceptional academic advising</li>
<li>Amazing diversity of the student body</li>
<li>Abundance of outstanding prearranged extracurricular activities available to student body (tutoring h.s. students, hospital volunteering, etc.)</li>
<li>Amazing merit scholarship opportunities not found at any school of WashU’s caliber.</li>
<li>Central United States location that allows for relatively easy access from both the East and West Coast.</li>
<li>Hammocks all over campus. 'Nuff said.</li>
<li>Loads of brand new buildings and a strong commitment to construction and development…</li>
<li>St. Louis’s fabulous music scene.</li>
<li>Crazy huge endowment that allows for lots of free trips to campus and subsidized FOCUS excursions and everything a student could want.</li>
<li>Summer excursions like ArtSci Weekends and FSAP that allow students to get acclimated to campus before Orientation.</li>
<li>Awesome Pre-O’s!</li>
<li>Residential colleges that allow freshman to have connections to sophmores.</li>
<li>Really nice programs for frosh like FOCUS and Freshman Seminars and MBB, Text and Tradition, Medicine in Society…</li>
<li>They send you a lot of mail and you feel really good, especially when it’s priority and you’re like “OMG they spend $4.95 on ME!”</li>
<li>Outstanding Financial Aid</li>
<li>St. Louis has some fabulous food. The Hill, Ted Drewes, Tin Cup. Also the amazing Missouri Bakery with the best cheesecake I’ve ever eaten.</li>
<li>Involved and caring students (hirako, don_quixote, johnson181, balancedhelium, etc.) and parents/others (midwest parent; st2, fallenchemist; palmalk, etc.)</li>
<li>WILD (Kid Cudi and the Black Keys in a few weeks!)</li>
<li>Award winning and AMAZING a capella groups </li>
<li>The best dressed university chancellor in the country who has a bowling alley in his house! </li>
<li>The Bunny. Enough said. </li>
<li>Thurtene Carnival, largest in St. Louis, tons of food, games, rides. Greek life also plays a big role in the carnival.</li>
</ol>
<p>come on guys, we can get this up to 101!!</p>
<p>I’ll come up with more later…</p>
<ol>
<li>The architecture of the buildings is classically gothic and beautiful.</li>
<li>Big university resources, smaller LAC-style attention to students (and AN EXTREMELY SMALL % OF CLASSES TAUGHT BY TAs - and when they are taught by TAs/Grad students this seems to be a good thing - e.g., the Writing 1 class).</li>
<li>Academic Flexibility – Easy to switch schools within WashU and to double major/minor.</li>
<li>Amazing pre-professional programs and resources, especially for pre-meds through the renowned WUSTL medical center</li>
<li>The quality of your peers</li>
<li>Some of the best dorms in the country</li>
<li>Some of the best food for a university</li>
<li>Genuine Midwestern friendliness and helpfulness</li>
<li>Lack of cut-throat competitiveness amongst students, more collaboration</li>
<li>Easy access to metro and busing (FREE!)</li>
<li>2nd best DIII sports school in the United States</li>
<li>Professors are more undergrad-focused than other top research universities</li>
<li>Undergrads have limitless research opportunities.</li>
<li>Beautiful campus (where students are playing ultimate frisbee, football, or in hammocks on the quads).</li>
<li>Forest park across the street (HUGE park with free museums and such).</li>
<li>The Loop (great food and shopping) within walking distance of the university.</li>
<li>Humongous shopping complexes not too far away (by car, Clayton area?)</li>
<li>3 large hospitals within the area.</li>
<li>Exceptional academic advising</li>
<li>Amazing diversity of the student body</li>
<li>Abundance of outstanding prearranged extracurricular activities available to student body (tutoring h.s. students, hospital volunteering, etc.)</li>
<li>Amazing merit scholarship opportunities not found at any school of WashU’s caliber.</li>
<li>Central United States location that allows for relatively easy access from both the East and West Coast.</li>
<li>Hammocks all over campus. 'Nuff said.</li>
<li>Loads of brand new buildings and a strong commitment to construction and development…</li>
<li>St. Louis’s fabulous music scene.</li>
<li>Crazy huge endowment that allows for lots of free trips to campus and subsidized FOCUS excursions and everything a student could want.</li>
<li>Summer excursions like ArtSci Weekends and FSAP that allow students to get acclimated to campus before Orientation.</li>
<li>Awesome Pre-O’s!</li>
<li>Residential colleges that allow freshman to have connections to sophmores.</li>
<li>Really nice programs for frosh like FOCUS and Freshman Seminars and MBB, Text and Tradition, Medicine in Society…</li>
<li>They send you a lot of mail and you feel really good, especially when it’s priority and you’re like “OMG they spend $4.95 on ME!”</li>
<li>Outstanding Financial Aid</li>
<li>St. Louis has some fabulous food. The Hill, Ted Drewes, Tin Cup. Also the amazing Missouri Bakery with the best cheesecake I’ve ever eaten.</li>
<li>Involved and caring students (hirako, don_quixote, johnson181, balancedhelium, etc.) and parents/others (midwest parent; st2, fallenchemist; palmalk, etc.)</li>
<li>WILD (Kid Cudi and the Black Keys in a few weeks!)</li>
<li>Award winning and AMAZING a capella groups</li>
<li>The best dressed university chancellor in the country who has a bowling alley in his house!</li>
<li>The Bunny. Enough said.</li>
<li>Thurtene Carnival, largest in St. Louis, tons of food, games, rides. Greek life also plays a big role in the carnival. </li>
<li>The Holi Festival. Students gather on the Swamp for the school’s largest water balloon fight. Everyone gets wet, muddy, and most importantly, everyone has fun.</li>
</ol>
<p>I really think that if we were to list more, we would simply be restating some of the incredible facts about WashU. A lot of our points were pretty general :P, if anyone has more to think of, please add!</p>