Washington Admittance Hardness

madbean
Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:48:08 +0000

When building a class, I imagine WashU and other selective colleges desire a percentage of that class to be SAT/GPA superstars–but they clearly do not intend to give all their spaces to this type of student. To round out the class, the also require superstar artists, musicians, athletes, social activists, community builders, leaders, humanitarians, and so forth. When filling the slots for each of these categories, they will find more than enough applicants who qualify so part of the narrowing process must include determining how well a particular student will fit the culture of the school. At that point, expressed interest can be useful to the adcom. For the lone soprano saxophone virtuoso with national awards (in a year the school desperately needs a soprano sax player) perhaps less weight is given to the interest she has shown. To the 400th NMF with excellent ECs, there will be more attention paid, I believe, just how sincerely they want to attend WashU.

Agreeing with TheIndividual’s two cents and adding two cents of my own.