Hi Hamzag-
I know you asked for students to reply, but I am a parent of a child (that was waitlisted at WashU). Wanted to share my observations after watching the results from our high school. Two things jump out at me:
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Demonstrated interest at Wash U seems to be very important for most candidates. That means not just visiting, but also make sure to apply for scholarships even if you don’t think you have a chance at getting them. One exception to this may be if you have another type of hook (ie, recruited athlete, legacy, URM). My son was already accepted Early Action at his top choice and did not apply for scholarships and only visited once during his sophomore year of HS. This is not necessarily why he didn’t get in…but I can’t help but think from looking at most of the accepted students replies that it certainly didn’t help.
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if you truly, truly want to go to Wash U, or any other top-tier school --and that school has Early Decision (where you can only apply to one Early Decision school, and if accepted you agree that you will attend) --apply through Early Decision. We had several students at our high school that were accepted to top tier universities like Wash U (Northwestern, Vanderbilt, etc) during the ED process. While these students were all deserving and will fit in well at their respective schools, I am not sure that they would have made it in during the RD round, based on the students from our school that were rejected/wait listed during RD. I am not even talking about my own child here…just that we had a few students in particular that were absolutely stellar that were rejected/wait listed during the RD round. In my own child’s case, Wash U was not his clear cut #1 school–so he chose not to do this.
Lastly, if you do apply ED that is the ultimate in demonstrated interest–so you are covered for both #1 and #2.
Good luck!