Wash U Is Distasteful!

Sam_Lee
Fri, 09 Mar 2007 01:52:46 +0000

oldoldadd,

Your kid hasn’t even enrolled at WashU and you already act like he/she has or you went there. :rolleyes: Do some research; it’s not hard to find WashU’s admission ISN’T need-blind: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_admissions_in_the_United_States
Home | Cornell Chronicle;
If it were, I am sure WashU would be broadcasting it loudly, given the way its marketing itself.

I agree that in theory, having merit scholarships and giving financial aid are not mutually exclusive but in reality, they are on the opposite sides of a zero-sum game in most cases and that’s the reason very schools are able to do both. Duke is the only school I know though I am not sure how long they can sustain it.

Just because you “know an awful lot of folks who should not have been accepted” (how exactly do you find out many people’s financial background?) doesn’t mean they don’t practice need aware policy. Every school that I know of as need-blind states it very clearly and explicitly. Conversely, if schools don’t tell you their admission isn’t need-blind, chances are it isn’t!

Also, meeting 100% of the need for the accepted ones doesn’t mean the admission isn’t need-blind. Many people confuse the two.

ST2,
I read about it and it’s just common sense that most of those with the highest scores are not from poor families. “Higher income” doesn’t necessarily means wealthy; it just means at least not poor. For example, you don’t need to be from a wealthy family to get into those prep courses but you probably don’t go to them if your family is poor. “Middle class” is exactly the group WashU likes targeting because they are the ones that would be faced with the tough decision of choosing HYPS with debt (the poor ones go to HYPS for FREE) vs WashU with merit-based scholarships. Wealthy ones will pick their first choice regardless since money isn’t an issue. I am not bashing WashU (bashing implies lies and misinformation); in fact, I think WashU is probably ranked high and good enough to get great students using need-blind admission, even if it means sacrificing merit-based scholarships.