No supplement essay....

fallenchemist
Mon, 23 Sep 2013 15:51:54 +0000

I really believe that my son is getting every bit as good, if not better, an education at WUSTL than he would have received at any of the other schools he was accepted to.

I almost guarantee it, especially since he has adapted so well and is enjoying it so much.

Anyway, to the OP question, there is a set of schools whose combination of strong academics, high selectivity, limited incoming class size, and not being Harvard/Yale (i.e. not having 80+% admissions yield) means that they have to do their best to gauge who is most likely to accept offers of admission. The less they do to try and judge that, the greater the chance the incoming class will be too big (the more significant problem) or too small (less of a problem since they would still get people in off the wait list, although quality might suffer very slightly if they had to take too many).

So IF you have great credentials AND you show strong interest, they feel confident putting you in the “highly likely to attend” category. If you are somewhat interested but don’t seem really keen on WUSTL, that is another category, and if you essentially show no interest beyond applying that is another category. That is an oversimplification, they take into account lots of factors, such as your stats. That is to say, if your stats are right on the line but you show great interest, you certainly have a better shot than if you don’t show interest. If your stats are stellar but you show zero interest, you very well might not get in. This happens all the time, because they don’t want to risk an acceptance slot for a kid far more likely to attend HYPS. They cannot read your mind, so they have to go with the indicators.

So in summary, there isn’t a specific degree they take it into account, it is more of a factor that rounds out the admissions picture for each student. Just like GPA vs. test scores vs. talent/leadership factors, etc. its importance varies by student.