<p>Hi, I’m a student from Illinois who plans on applying to ED in the fall, and I have a few general questions about WashU and the admissions process.</p>
<li><p>How much weight does WashU place on the Writing portion of the SAT? As of now, I’m considering taking the SAT in October and possibly November. I’d like to take it because it seems to have a stronger weight on the math section, which is by far my biggest strength.</p></li>
<li><p>Neither of my parents attended college. Does WashU give any special preference, even if minor, to first generation college students or students with a low family income?</p></li>
<li><p>I know that WashU superscores the ACT and that the middle 50% is 30-33 for the university. In order to get a better idea of my chances, I’d like to know if this means that the middle 50% have superscores between 30 and 33, or if the scores were obtained in one sitting.</p></li>
<li><p>Before committing to a binding agreement in early decision, I need to know for sure that attending WashU will be affordable. As I already stated, I come from a low income family, not to mention I already have an older brother at a private school and a sister only two years behind me. What has you experience been with financial aid at WashU? WashU is far and away my first choice, and I just hope that it will be affordable. Does anyone know if it would be possible for my parents and me to visit/talk with financial aid officers at WashU in order to get a ballpark estimate of what it will cost me before committing to early decision?</p></li>
<li><p>How competitive are WashU varsity sports teams? I’m aware that the Bears won Division III championships for both basketball and tennis. I also know that WashU does not give out athletic scholarships, which is why I’d like to know if athletes are recruited or if they are made up only of already admitted students. I’m wondering because I am a decent tennis player, and I sometimes play with college students who play for DIII schools. I’d love to play on WashU’s varsity tennis team if possible.</p></li>
<li><p>How is dorm life at WashU? The dorm life is one aspect of the college my brother attends that I really admire (Illinois Institute of Technology). For starters, the students on his floor are incredibly diverse. This may not seem like a big deal to some, but I absolutely love diversity. My brother rooms with a student from Korea, and the hall contains all kinds of international students and people with different ethnicities and backgrounds. I have talked to some of the students at IIT, and it’s truly amazing to share different experiences and times with such a diverse group. (I come from a town w/almost no diversity and is like 95% caucasian) Also, students who live near each other seem to all have a strong friendship. How well do WashU students know the people who live in the same dorm hall?</p></li>
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<p>I apologize for the lengthy post. I hope to see some of you at WashU in the near future!</p>
<p>I’d just like to point out that a great deal of this can be answered if you talk with/email an admissions counselor.
but here are my opinions:
prolly not that much, but enough so that you dont fail it. try to aim for a low 700s, and youre prolly safe (i got a 750)
maybe? i have no clue, but i want to say yes.
i hate these things, b/c theres so much more to an app besides the sat/act scores. w/ just that, im pretty sure i can get into every college. if you dont have anything besides nice test scores, you wont get in any great college (unless youre some sort of very smart person who already went though diff eq your junior year or something, but that would also be reflected in your class schedule). dont take them into much consideration unless the middle is a great deal bigger/smaller than your score.
[FinAid</a> | Calculators | Expected Family Contribution (EFC) and Financial Aid](<a href=“http://www.finaid.org/calculators/finaidestimate.phtml]FinAid”>http://www.finaid.org/calculators/finaidestimate.phtml) go with that. but speak w/ the finaid/admissions ppl too. they say they meet 100% need, sometimes might give more if you bug them enough, and have quite a few merit scholarships for the taking. the main thing is NOT to apply if youre not sure. backing out of an ED acceptance is almost always very very sticky.
theyre division iii, so im guessing not very? if youre spectacular and somehow have an in w/ a coach / show it in your app, i guess you could find your chances of getting in increase
well im glad you love diversity. [About</a> Washington University](<a href=“http://admissions.wustl.edu/faq/Pages/AboutWashingtonUniversity.aspx#ethnicitybreakdown]About”>http://admissions.wustl.edu/faq/Pages/AboutWashingtonUniversity.aspx#ethnicitybreakdown) will tell you a bit about diversity there. its commonly believed that if you get a traditional dorm, you tend to be closer to your hallmates, as apparently being forced to leave your hole in the wall for the toilet makes you more outgoing. but it doesnt really matter if you get a traditional or a modern, if you make an effort to be antisocial/outgoing. it depends more on the ppl than the hall (as the housing assignments are supposed to be relatively random), and if you dont make a concerted effort to get to know ppl in your hall, then you can only blame yourself.</p>
<p>s’okay. im also relatively long-winded. good luck!</p>
<p>Thanks for the response! Regarding the ACT scores, I’m a bit worried about them as my ACT score may be the weak spot in my application. I got a 29 on the June exam, which would be in the lowest quartile among WashU students. However, I plan on taking the Sep and Oct exams. If I can raise one section by one point I will have a superscore of 30, so hopefully I’ll be ok. </p>
<p>Man I hate the ACT. Can’t wait to be done w/it.</p>
<p>Inthemistylight, are you going to attend WashU? It says you were accepted in your profile.</p>
<p>well it also depends on where youre from in illinois. if its a relatively low-achieving school/area, your score will look far better.
and in addition to taking the acts again, try taking the sats as well. some ppl do better on one test than the other (no idea why though). dont stress over it that much. i doubt learning will be that much different no matter where you go.</p>
<p>^some people do better on one than the other because the two tests are drastically different in terms of how they go about asking the questions.
I.e. I got a 35 math act, but only a 730 because act math is much more obvious to me (I know people where that’s reversed as well).</p>
<p>Not meeting your needs for financial aid is really the only reason why ANY college will release you from an Early Decision agreement. no college would bankrupt your family, make you take out a second mortage, etc, in order for you to fulfill your end of an early decision application. call WUSTL just to hear their own language on the policy, but it would be shocking if a college said otherwise. since that’s basically the policy for all universities that offer Early Decision, it would be silly for them to not offer you enough $$ - because you would have a greater chance of backing out of your ED agreement, and they count on everyone admitted under ED to come. colleges don’t like their yield to decrease :)</p>
<p>if anything, applying ED might mean more chances for financial aid support if you need it… because you are admitted first, you are also using the first $$ of a college’s financial aid resources. </p>
<p>if you have a first choice school, it never hurts to apply ED to that school. if you don’t have a first choice school, clearly don’t apply ED/EA, but there’s no reason not to apply early if you know for sure that school is your absolute first choice.</p>
<p>What is the campus like? Also, when do you think is the best time of the year to visit? My mother and I are already in the midst of planning a visit to Rice, however, I was interested in visiting WashU as well. We have decided to visit Rice in late October, and I am wondering what the weather is like in Missouri at that time of the year. (Sorry, I’m from the west coast, and I have utterly no idea what the midwest is like, having never been there.)</p>
<p>How good is Wash U and sports? Well, I have a friend who earned a D-1 volleyball scholarship, later left that school to play D-3. And she could not have made the Wash U volleyball team. Academics, she would have been fine. Athletics, no way. Maybe that helps to answer your question. D-3 athletics can be very good.</p>
<p>guitarman87: about question 5 (tennis) – yes, players are recruited (among those that qualify academically), and there is also a walk-on tournament in the fall. If you’re interested, it would be a good idea to contact the coach now, as a rising high school senior. You can look at past/junior national rankings of current team members on tennisrecruiting.net to see if you might be in the same range. In addition to the varsity team, Wash U also has an active club tennis team.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>There was a recent study suggesting that the SAT writing score had a higher correlation with freshman GPA than the math or reading component.
However, none of the correlations were very high. Nonetheless I don’t think colleges give it any special weight relative to other standardized test scores.</p></li>
<li><p>First generation college student is a small plus. Not just at Wash U but at many schools.</p></li>
<li><p>Don’t know.</p></li>
<li><p>inthemistylight’s and jcool155’s reply pretty much nailed it. The only thing that I would add is that Wash U admits you ED I am confident they will meet their assessment of your financial need. Their assessment may be different than your own, but Wash U has resources and it seems unlikely to me that you will have an insuperable problem. The applicants that have problems are marginal RD or waitlist adimits with high financial need.</p></li>
<li><p>Athletes are recruited, but not in the sense you are thinking of. Coaches seek out talented athletes who they think can get admitted. If you can’t get admitted pretty much on your own academic credentials it doesn’t matter how good you are. Coaches might have the ability to get 1 marginal candidate over the hump per year, but even that’s a maybe.
At my local high school we had two players going on to play college basketball. The better player is going to a DIII school and and the other is playing at low level DI. Top DIII teams are often better than low DI teams in sports other than football and basketball.</p></li>
<li><p>Don’t know</p></li>
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<p>IJReilly - I would just add to your point 5. Both the men’s and women’s basketball teams at WashU would give many D1 teams a run for their money.</p>
<p>I’m sorry, but the above post is incorrect. Both teams would get destroyed even against smaller d1 schools like mt. st. marys. </p>
<p>Also, DIII schools like wash u and emory do help athletes get in. There is a maximum number (not just 1 athlete), but they most certainly do help with the admissions process.</p>
<p>This should probably be in another thread, but I would agree wth sfgiant. In general even top DIII schools will not be competitive with “bad” DI teams in basketball and football. There are good reasons for this, but like most things in DI sports it’s ultimately about money. But in other sports (such as tennis or swimming) I think otherwise, a top DIII can beat a poor DI school. </p>
<p>For example, look at men’s swimming where Kenyon has won something like 20NCAA DIII titles in a row and compare their times to those at Texas (the No 1 DI swimming school this year) and you will see that Texas has several swimmers in each event better than the the best swimmer in that event at Kenyon. But if you instead look at the best times at Southern Illinois (not to pick on SIU, I chose it because it’s relatively low D1 and close geographically to Wash U) you can see that Kenyon is competitive with SIU. I chose swimming because it’s a sport where we can judge quality objectively. </p>
<p>Making some small attempt to stay on topic. Every DIII school handles the admission of athletes differently. But in general if a coach at a DIII school has made contact with you and “recruited” you it is a plus in the admissions process. Coaches can and do submit lists of applicants to the admissions office in which they are interested, but in general the rule is you have to be admittable on your own merits. The coach’s interest can put over the hump, but if you are at the bottom of the hill looking up, being a great athelete won’t get you up the hill and over. And of course since it’s DIII there are no athletic scholarships. Not to say no scholarships, just no scholarships explicity for your athletic prowess.</p>
<p>Sorry to disagree with SFGIANT, but being an athlete in no way increases your chances of admissions. I know this for a fact. The coaches will give you advice on how to give your self the best chances of being accepted, but there is no additional consideration given athletes being considered for varsity sports, and admissions standards will not waver for them either. That is a direct statement of the director of admissions and a number of coaches.</p>
<p>Division III athletes are recruited by the same coaches as Division I, Division I-AA, and Division II. From my experience, both personally and hearing from others like me, WashU competes with Ivies like Princeton, Yale, Harvard, etc. for football players and basketball players, despite being division III as compared to I-AA. This can also be shown in that many DIII football players even get drafted into the NFL, Studebaker from Wheaton, a team WashU played, is one example of this from just last year, being drafted in the 6th round. From personal experience, WashU does get athletes that have been recruited by both division I and I-AA schools all the time and could compete with some of these schools. Most people, however, assume that there is a significant difference in talent between divisions, when this is not entirely true. A lot of players at WashU or schools like the University of Chicago, etc. sacrifice playing DI sports for academics. Not to say that WashU could even come close to competing with LSU, Ohio State, or Florida in any sport but they could with many Ivies or D I-AA schools.</p>
<p>IJ Reilly got it right. In revenue sports such as football and basketball, a really good DIII school won’t compete well against a really bad DI school. In football, probably for safety reasons, they won’t even play each other. In basketball bad DI teams will play DIII teams in non-conference early games to tune up for their conference games. The results of these games demonstrate that there is a large talent gap between between DI and DIII teams. That doesn’t mean that an individual talented player sometimes doesn’t slip to DIII. However, it would be a mistake to believe that just because a DIII basketball team looks good against other DIII teams, that it would be competitive in a DI conference. A division III team may try to recruit some of the same basketball and football players as the Ivy League, but given the product on the field or court that each end up with, it is pretty clear that not many athletes that can play at that level opt out from playing DIAA.</p>
<p>I think you are being a little naive, and there is no way to know what you said “for a fact.” Certainly academic standards are not “waived” for athletes, but athletic talent and the support of a coach can make the difference between one applicant and another.</p>
<p>But when you think about it, how is that any different than a student who was a great debater in high school, a great musician, a great actor, or anything else that might add to the school’s culture and atmosphere? Would anyone be shocked if the drama coach recommends a great actor who can contribute to the theater program?</p>
<p>All of that said, everyone on here is correct that no one is getting in who does not already have a very competitive application. In that sense it is a different experience than DI.</p>
<p>I’m sorry to say that it is a fact. As I mentioned before, I was accepted to a top school to run. Without this, I would not have gotten in. I know of many other athletes who are in the same boat as me. I was told by coaches that I would have an excellent shot of getting in if I applied and was interested in running for their respective programs.</p>