WUSTL vs. JHU vs. Nortwestern. Please help me

Colleges and Universities A-Z Washington University in St. Louis
#1

<p>Hi, I was wondering if you can rate northwestern's selevtivity versus Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, and Emory, which are all my candidates for reach schools. I'm thinking about picking 2 or 3 from this list, so what ones would you pick considering I want to go to medical school, and have engineering for a backup. </p>

<p>Also, despite being reaches, I still dont want to apply to a school where I have virtually no shot of getting in (ie stanford, harvard, etc.) so based on my stats, what would you recommend as far as what reach schools I should apply to out of the list (northwestern, WUSTL, JHU, Vandy, Notre Dame, Emory)? Also which one would you recommend I should apply to early decision?</p>

<p>demographics
*I am an Asian Indian Male
*From a competitive public high school in Oregon, Beaverton High School, which was also rated the best AP school in Oregon, so yeah, its a smart school.
*student body at school = 500+</p>

<p>The Numbers/ECs
*Freshman year:
Lit 9-A, A with honors both sem
Spanish 1-A,A
Social Studies-A,A
Health 1 (req)-A
PE (req)-A
Adv. Algebra 2-A, A
SAT Verbal prep-A
SAT math prep-A
10th Grade Science-A, A with honors both sem</p>

<p>*Sophomore Year (really messed up):
Lit 10-A, A with honors
AP Chem- B, A
Precalc-A, B
Social Studies-B (note: can I explain a grade anywhere because this grade was ridiculous), A
Physics 2-A,A
Spanish 2-A,A
Band-A,A (needed for an EC)
Health 2-A (req)
PE-A (req) </p>

<p>*Junior Year (projected)
Human Anat/Phys-A,A
IB Bio HL 1-A,A
Spanish 3-A,A
IB Calculus-A,A
IB Psychology-A,A
Team Sports-A
IB English-B,B
IB Tok 1-B</p>

<p>*class rank UW right now = 38/515. Weighted = 30/515 (will go up because not many kids have taken hard classes yet)
*IB Diploma Candidate (to be)
*Will take AP exams in addition to IB exams, so I could be AP Scholar w/ distinction or just AP scholar as well.
*Varsity tennis 4 years (will have 4)
*Science Team 4 years (will have 4)
*World Quest Trivia 4 years (will have 4)
*Science Club Treasurer (1 year)
*Science Club VP (2 years)
*Math Club VP (2 years)
*Portland Youth Philharmonic (3 years)
*Mathfest Algebra 2 1st place fresh year
*OIMT Participant Fresh Year
*Mathfest Participant sophomore year
*Oregon Museum of Science and Industry Rising Star Program (will have 175-200 hours done)
*Mathcounts Tutor (about 50+ volunteer hours)
*expecting around 2000-2100 on SAT, 30+ on ACT</p>

<p>I've posted this before, but this is just so that you dont have to search for me.</p>

#2

<p>WashU will definitely be a reach...next year is expected to be quite competitive for them. Northwestern and JHU won't be quite as tough as WashU, and Vandy and Emory will be even less difficult to get into (maybe even high-mid range). Not sure about ND, because I hear they had a much more competitive year in the admissions process than ever before.</p>

<p>That's just my thought. I could be wrong.</p>

<p>By the way, since you're interested in pre-med and engineering, all of those places are good choice...WashU and JHU will probably have the most rigorous pre-med, but Northwestern and JHU probably have the strongest engineering programs among that group. I guess which school you decide to go to depends on which field you feel more strongly about, and if you choose engineering if you would want to go to grad school for it as well.</p>

#3

<p>i woundt necessarily say that wash u is more selective than northwestern</p>

<p>u have to remember that wash u throws out MAD MONEY to so many kids to entice them to come. Without the use of these scholarships, Wash U's student body would be less talented without a doubt. Don't kid yourselves, if wash u didnt think they needed to throw out money, they wouldn't. There is a reason why places like Wash U and Rice give out A LOT of merit money whereas Northwestern and others don't.</p>

#4

<p>BBall87, according to the Princeton Review's top 20 hardest colleges to get into, WashU is ranked 11th hardest to get into...Northwestern isn't even on the list, and none of the others are either.</p>

<p>And despite the "mad money" WashU throws out to "so many kids," they really don't throw out THAT much money. Is it enough to entice a lot of kids into choosing WashU over other schools? Sure; I agree that the student body would be less talented without the use of merit scholarships. But is it enough to offset the difference in selectivity between WashU and Northwestern? Probably not. The difference between WashU and Northwestern's selectivity is 1,000 applicants accepted (and a resulting 10% difference in admit rates). WashU accepted 4000 last year out of 21500; Northwestern accepted almost 5000 out of like 16000+. That seems like a big difference if you ask me.</p>

<p>The fact remains that WashU is more selective than Northwestern...and if this housing shortage is the real deal, then next year will be a good deal harder. And already it was hard enough this year, with an 18%ish admit rate this year by most estimates. Next year? It will be a few percent lower I'd think. Eventually WashU will need to eliminate merit scholarships altogether, although that may be a good five or ten years from now.</p>

<p>Also, I hear that Northwestern is switching to common app...so Northwestern may experience a surge in applications this year.</p>

#5

<p>buddy, what is wash u's yield and what is northwestern's yield?</p>

<p>northwestern's class size is 1950</p>

<p>wash u is 1100-1200</p>

<p>i would definetely hope that Northwestern was taking more than 4000 kids that wash u is taking when it is almost 2 X as large.</p>

#6

<p>By your logic, the bigger the school is, the harder it should be to get into...that would mean that Northwestern should be harder to get into a school like Swarthmore (which is similar in admissions stats as WashU but is still smaller). Would you like Northwestern's class size to shrink down by like 500 or 600 so it can match WashU's? How about even more so it can match Swarthmore? Then you MIGHT be happy with the increased selectivity. And somehow you think that Northwestern's yield is so much larger than WashU's, when in fact this year they are almost the same.</p>

<p>WashU's class size 1100-1200 students? You're kind of off there. WashU's class size is 1350-1400 (last year's entering class was 1388 students)...and this year their yield increased so much that they overenrolled that number by like 100 (1470 is the official number I think). So Northwestern isn't quite that much bigger than WashU...maybe 40% larger...but not almost 100% larger as you put it. Nice try though.</p>

<p>Additionally, WashU's yield is estimated to be almost 40% this year, not much unlike Northwestern (which is like 41% according to their web site). Expect WashU's number to continue to increase as the years go on. Next year is expected to be a record difficult year to get into WashU...so look out. As much as some people seem to dislike WashU's rise in prominence, it looks as though, for now, not much is in its way to stop it.</p>

#7

<p>i have nothinig against it</p>

<p>in fact, i am visiting it on tuesday (accepted as a transfer)</p>

<p>i dont think i am going, but if i love it, i'll go</p>

#8

<p>Yes, WASH U is a good school. I don’t want to hear about this "housing shortage" crap as a reason why though. Bad planning on the part of the university does not mean it's a good school. :rolleyes: Also, top schools that give out large amounts of merit aid usually do so because they know that they would lose students to other schools if they did not. Why do you think the Ivy League does not do this…. Hmm... I’m more than sure that if Northwestern started giving out boatloads of merit aid, it would have more people apply and thus a lower acceptance rate. I've said it before, and I’ll say it again: lower acceptance rates do not make schools more selective, as some of the people who apply to top schools have almost no chance of being admitted to said schools.</p>

#9

<p>The housing shortage wasn't cited to prove WashU's overall quality as a school; it is instead being used to explain why selectivity will increase next year. Furthermore, WashU's merit aid programs ("boatloads"? I'd beg to differ) don't make it an inherently less worthy school than Northwestern. WashU is simply trying to increase its appeal to especially strong applicants to compensate for the fact that it is unquestionably less of a household name than many of the Ivies, for example. And it works. The topic at hand here isn't a question of which school is of a higher quality (I'd still side with WU) but instead which school will be tougher in the admissions game next year, so the answer is WashU, independent of the merit aid issue and as a result of the housing crunch. Your last statement about the difference between selectivity and acceptance rates isn't quite as relevant here, because the student in question does have a chance at any of these schools (JHU, NW, WU). He's not one of those random kids who wakes up one morning and decides to apply to Harvard.</p>

#10