We at Student Life know you’re only reading this because your parent shoved it into your hand. Maybe you were looking for a crossword puzzle. At any rate, you have flipped your way to the Forum (opinions) section, and we have a special public service announcement just for you. You (or, more likely, your parent) may be wondering, “How can I get the most out of my visit to Washington University?” Here’s a series of tips from the editorial board brain trust, all experienced Wash. U. students and former pre-frosh ourselves.

1. Don’t just take the guided tour. While you’ll get a nice overview of the campus and learn a few esoteric facts about Wash. U. history, you will benefit most from the uncensored version. The best way to get a feel for a school is to interact with the students, not just the tour guide. Tour guides have a limited amount of time to introduce you to Wash. U., and they are advertising the school, not giving a “warts and all” analysis. They’re not necessarily going to know everything about specific academic programs. Also, are you really going to ask about enforcement of the alcohol policy when you’re on a guided tour with your parents?

2. If you’re staying overnight, hang out with your hosts. I know it’s tempting to ditch them, but they are an excellent resource for any information you might want, from insight on different academic programs and clubs to the quality of the campus food. They are the perfect candidates to give you uncensored information and advice. If you have questions they can’t answer, they can undoubtedly hook you up with someone who can. Plus, they signed up for this gig—they want to help you out!

3. Sit in on a class or two, but don’t get up and leave as soon as the class is over. Take the time to talk to the students after class. Swing by a professor’s office hours and ask a few questions. Wash. U. students and professors are, for the most part, friendly and willing to answer your questions. That said, there are a few caveats. Do not ask questions during class. Those groans you hear in the background are not appreciative. Exams are fast approaching, so a lot of desperate people will be attending office hours. Be respectful and keep your visit short.

4. Take the time to visit the greater St. Louis area. This is where you’re potentially living for four years. At the very least, visit the Delmar Loop and get a burger at Fitz’s. You’re probably going to be here for a short amount of time, but if you get the chance, take a ride on the Metro and get a feel for St. Louis.

5. Don’t use the trays in the Danforth University Center. Nobody actually uses them for anything other than sledding in winter. The trays brand you as a pre-frosh even more obviously than that lanyard you tried to hide in your pocket.

6. Enjoy yourself! This is an exciting opportunity to see what college life is like and get a feel for Wash. U.

To our fellow Wash. U. students:

We know exams are looming and you have a lot on your mind. But if you have time to read Student Life, you have the time to be nice to the visiting pre-frosh. If you’re a host, introduce your pre-frosh to your friends and make them feel at home. If you’re not, be friendly if someone carrying an admissions office folder asks you a question. Offer help to that befuddled soul staring at a campus map. You were probably a pre-frosh at some point yourself, so you know what it’s like, even if you’re a big bad upperclassman now. These wide-eyed high schoolers are potential classmates and friends. Show them what Wash. U. is all about, both the positives and the negatives, so they can make an informed decision and we can get a class chock-full of freshmen who are really excited to be a part of the community.

Last week, David Cameron decried the scant admissions rate for blacks at the university. Only one black student was admitted last year, he claimed. Oxford countered, saying that it had admitted not one, but a grand total of 27 students. But as an Oxford alum himself, what exactly was Cameron seeking to prove? His comments have provoked a torrent of criticism from those who argue that it is not racism that is institutionalized, but class. Critics of Cameron say that low acceptance rates are symptomatic of an educational system in which minority status is synonymous with the lower class.

Like some critics, I believe that while Cameron’s views are justified and improvement should be made at Oxford, his attention should be turned elsewhere. While racism might be institutionalized at an educational level, it’s more broadly based at a socioeconomic and political level. This is what Cameron should be focused on, which could be tricky, given his recent musings on the failure of multiculturalism.

So where does Oxford, at the pinnacle of the education system, stand? It is, after all, where the term “ivory tower” was coined, as homage to the creamy architecture of All Souls College. It stands as the object of intense fascination, its cavernous libraries and stony-faced colleges crowded with the weight of centuries of knowledge and those who sought it— a list too long to begin here.

However, it has not, and never will be, the site of a revolution, social or otherwise.

Oxford is an institution that stands apart, whose inner workings progress like gears bound in molasses. There is a hesitancy to admit that adjustments to this small world might be necessary, which could disrupt its quiet defiance to the passage of time.

And yet there are those who gain coveted access to those hallowed halls, and have found that the illusion is shattered. The patriarchy has diminished, yet women still battle for equality in the ultimate boy’s club, which did not begin to integrate female students until 1974.

The realities of class differentiation still linger, casually implied by your choice of prep school.

Oxford is an elite university, and an elitist world.

It is changing, but it hasn’t changed fast enough.

At a national level, in 2009, more than 29,000 white students received the grades necessary for admission to Oxford. Only 452 black students met the qualifications. And while the United Kingdom is a predominately white nation (92 percent compared to 2 percent black in 2001), these statistics still don’t make the cut.

Coming from an American perspective, this seems especially outrageous. Ours is an admissions system that qualifies and contextualizes. It is a more sensitive system, but it is also a more subjective system. In England, there is no emphasis on the mercurial “well-rounded” student. It is the grade that counts in university admissions, no matter the cost, or who can afford it—which is what makes class so important an issue to address.

Should Oxford (and the rest of universities in the United Kingdom) start to evaluate its applicants based on a complex rubric of how well Applicant A balanced football practice, show choir, and six honors classes against overwhelming socioeconomic, racial and sexist adversity? Maybe.

Should the United Kingdom begin to evaluate the system that produces such a paltry number of qualified minority applicants, as they stand at the gates of these institutions? Definitely.

While it might be easy to point a finger at Oxford’s notorious elitism and unwillingness to change, it isn’t the cause here. Instead, it’s something greater, something that’s more worthy of analysis—that even the brightest minds at the tallest of ivory towers will be hard-pressed to figure out.

We at Student Life understand your plight. You want to come to Wash. U. Who wouldn’t? But that tease of a Washington University Office of Admissions acceptance letter is tantalizing you, putting our illustrious institution within smelling distance (the sweat of overachievement is pungent, is it not?) and you in purgatory. Despite a 15 percent increase in applications for the Class of 2015, Wash. U. admitted 15 percent fewer students. There were 28,823 bright-eyed hopefuls that applied this year.

So why are you languishing in the wastelands, hoping for salvation? This may have something to do with the fact that someone’s calculator malfunctioned last year and now, approximately a bajillion (give or take a kajillion) students now populate the current freshman class. While we at Wash. U. love freshmen, at least in theory, this year they mostly just increase the lines at Bear’s Den and make frat parties even sweatier and more disgusting than usual.

To be honest, we are thrilled that fewer freshmen will be admitted. Enough of our classmates have been screwed over by housing selection this year to ignore the issues with over-enrollment. A repeat of this process would dramatically increase the number of face-palm-related injuries (up this year by more than 45 percent).

This may have something to do with college rankings. Not that our infallible administration would ever decrease the number of admitted students to increase our ranking in U.S. News & World Report. This connection seems unlikely, as the most obvious way to advance our selectivity would be simply to admit 10 students to the freshman class, decreasing the acceptance rate to a mere .00035 percent. The admissions team is definitely intelligent enough to figure that out. Whether this connection exists or not, we are definitely better than Johns Hopkins; this tie thing is complete B.S.

This is not the time to despair. No need to attempt to bribe the admissions committee just yet (although it never hurts to plan for the worst). Even though no one was admitted off of the wait-list last year, more students should be taken off of the wait-list this year. Last year, the University over-admitted in terms of the regular admissions applicants, so there was no room for anyone from the wait-list. This year, it is much more likely that you will be admitted. You will not be compensated for emotional anguish experienced in the interim.

Even if you don’t get in, take this to heart. Your rejection, as painful as it may be, will only serve to increase the value of a Wash. U. degree for the rest of us. The rising exclusivity of our little club of overachievers makes employers and graduate schools drool over us like a drunk undergrad over a half-and-half. Although this basically relegates you to the role of sacrificial sheep, really, it’s quite an honor. Perhaps you could do us all a favor and tell your friends and family where exactly Washington University is located. We are assuming that you did a bit of research and realize that no, you did not apply to that school in D.C. If there has been a mix-up, we are not sorry. It’s in St. Louis, damnit, the Paris of the Midwest. Someday it will be home to the most selective university in the world. Thanks for helping us get there.

Love,

Student Life

The move comes in response to an unexpectedly large number of students accepting admission into the Class of 2014 last year. The current freshman class contains slightly over 1,600 students.

Despite a 15 percent increase in applications, 15 percent fewer students received acceptance packets this year than last.

“Last year we welcomed a larger freshman class than we had planned for,” wrote Julie Shimabukuro, director of admissions, in an email to Student Life. “This year, we admitted 15 percent fewer students with the intention of using the waitlist to reach our target of 1,500 freshmen.”

Last year, the University accepted approximately 20 percent of the 24,939 students who applied. This year, 28,823 applied.

Various studies demonstrated that applicant pools are swelling simply because students are applying to more schools.

A recent survey by the University of California, Los Angeles found that 17.8 percent of students applied to at least eight schools this year, compared to 15.9 percent last year.

Junior Lindsay Aronson noted that while increasing competition may be unfortunate for students hoping to gain admission, a steadily decreasing acceptance rate is beneficial for the University as a whole.

“Ultimately, the more competitive the school is, the more valuable the degree becomes,” Aronson said.

Shimabukuro added that while final figures will not be available before May, the class of 2015 should be as diverse as the current freshman class.

“Last year, nearly 40 percent of our freshman class were multicultural or international, and we anticipate similar results for this year’s class, although it is hard to predict the final outcome from year to year,” Shimabukuro wrote.

Accepted students will be able to visit the University April 14-16 to take part in Celebrations Weekend, and March and April have been dubbed Spring Preview by the University. The admissions office is confident that the opportunity to visit will ultimately encourage students to matriculate.

“We are anticipating that many students will be visiting campus this spring to take a look at Washington University before making their final decisions,” Shimabukuro wrote. “We are confident that when they meet our current students and experience our community, they will choose to make us their home for the next four years.”

Current students support the tactical change.

“It’s probably better to play it safe and end up with a class of optimal size than to over enroll and deal with that issue,” said senior Joanna Perdomo. “I know they had to deal with problems with the chem labs and housing, so I think it’s wise.”

A recent article on the blog All Facebook cited a 2010 survey conducted by Kaplan, which found that four out of every five college admissions officers stated that their school used the social network to recruit students.

Julie Shimabukuro, director of undergraduate admissions, said admissions officers don’t actively investigate applicants’ Facebook pages. Still, incriminating information on Facebook constitutes fair grounds for rescinding admission offers.

“Reviewing Facebook pages has not been a formal part of the admissions process here,” Shimabukuro said. “That doesn’t mean that information about an applicant’s Facebook page is not referenced.”

While many colleges have moved to Facebook to interact with current and prospective students, the University has stuck mainly to conventional contact methods, like mail.

“[My friends and I] are never contacted through Facebook; it’s always by mail,” junior Robert Levy said.

While the University does not extensively recruit prospective students through the social network, students said they aren’t surprised that other colleges are doing so.

“I feel that colleges these days are using whatever they can to recruit more students,” sophomore Allan Wong said. “Most people rarely look at all of their e-mails, but they check their Facebook [profiles] every day.”

Most students agreed that Facebook is an effective way of recruiting prospective students.

“I’ve never gotten any message from college admissions officers, but I think it’s just where social media advertising is going. It’s a natural trend,” said Richard Marcus, a fifth-year master’s student.

Students suggested that using Facebook to draw applicants would benefit the University not only by increasing efficiency, but also by cutting costs.

“It doesn’t cost [the colleges] any money to send messages through Facebook, so if they can get five more students to apply, why not?” Wong said.

Legacies might even be the deciding factor in an increasingly competitive college admissions world.

The study conducted by Michael Hurwitz, a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, reported that applicants with a family member who attended a highly selective college are twice as likely to be admitted as their equally qualified non-legacy counterparts.

For what Hurwitz terms “primary legacy candidates”—applicants with at least one parent who attended the college as an undergraduate—the probability of admission is seven times as likely as non-legacy applicants.

Hurwitz cannot disclose whether Washington University was one of the 30 highly selective institutions that provided him with data. But according to the Office of Undergraduate admissions, the legacy trend is observable at Washington University.

“For as long as I can remember, the Admissions Office has tried to continue family relationships whenever possible,” said Julie Shimabukuro, director of undergraduate admissions. “In the fall 2010 freshman class, approximately 5 percent of admitted students had one or more parent graduate from the University.”

According to Shimabukuro, applicants who have at least one Wash. U. graduate as a parent are admitted to the University at a higher rate than others. For example, last fall, the difference in probability of admission between non-legacy and legacy applicants was approximately 21 to 38 percent.

But according to Shimabukuro, this discrepancy may be due to the difference in admission rates between early decision and regular decision admission rounds. Nearly half of enrolling legacies were admitted in the early decision round.

“Because our admit rate in the early decision round is usually higher than in the regular round for all applicants, not just legacies, one would expect to see a higher admit rate overall [for legacy applicants],” Shimabukuro said.

Junior Anna-Marie Muchen thinks the “legacy factor” is fine.

“When it comes to two equally qualified applicants, colleges need to use something to decide between them,” Muchen said. “Even though legacies may have a higher chance of getting in, colleges are still going to admit those that they feel are a fit for the school.”

According to Hurwitz, the admittance rate for legacy students at the schools he sampled does not greatly decrease other students’ odds of acceptance. This is due in part to the large applicant pool at the sampled schools.

“My sense is that the percentage [of legacy advantage over non-legacy] has been dropping over the years, as the applications have risen,” Shimabukuro said. “As you can imagine, it has been difficult to admit all of the students who would like to attend Washington University, even those who have a family relationship.”

It is not a test for applicants to take, but rather a tool for recommenders meant to complement traditional letters of recommendation. Up to five recommenders rank the student in a series of 24 statements about soft, or non-cognitive, skills on a scale from 1 (below average) to 5 (truly exceptional). Statements include “produces novel ideas,” “meets deadlines,” “works well under stress,” and “is worthy of trust from others.”

The results are distilled into a report on six traits, including knowledge and creativity, communication skills, teamwork, resilience, planning and organization, and ethics and integrity. The report also displays recommenders’ comments on each category.

Very few graduate programs have adopted the tool this year. The tool, called the “Personality Potential Index (PPI),” was introduced only this summer, and most schools did not hear of it until September, although Virginia Tech is one school that is using it during this application cycle.

Dean Richard Smith of Washington University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences said that the University is not adopting it until it is clear that the index is a good indicator of success in graduate school. He agreed with the intended goals of the test but is waiting for empirical results before adding to the difficulty and expense of graduate admissions.

“They are attempting to deal with a real problem, and that problem is that success…as an undergraduate is a rather poor predictor of success in Ph.D. programs that, like ours, which are deeply research focused, [are] designed to train people to do independent, creative scholarship,” he said.

Another goal of the test is to systematize the recommendation process, he said, since recommendation letters have suffered from inflation recently.

“So if you say in the letter, this is a very good student, you’re damning by faint praise,” Smith said. “The percentage that are in the top 1 to 5 percent greatly exceed 1 to 5 percent.”

But the PPI would mean more work for students, recommenders and admissions committees, so Smith noted it is important to do a cost-benefit analysis if evidence that the tool works does emerge.

The test has met with more skepticism from some. Erik Herzog, associate professor of biology, who has served on graduate admissions committees, questioned the utility of the PPI. He said individual schools’ recommendation forms often ask for similar rankings, but he strongly prioritizes GRE scores and letters of recommendation over them.

Washington University personality psychologist Robert Krueger said the test had the potential to be useful based on his experience, though he has not encountered it yet as a recommender. But like Smith, he is reserving judgment until its predictive power is better known.

Krueger studies the links between individual personality and risk for mental health problems. For instance, people with a more stress-reactive personality, or those who react poorly to stress, are at greater risk of developing depression and anxiety disorders.

In his work, he develops his own measures of personality in addition to using standard tests in the discipline. These include self-report inventories and reports from others, not unlike the basic idea underlying the PPI. Questions are often written in anticipation of the expected responses—he may write statements that he expects anxious people to endorse, for example—in an attempt to figure out if he’s measuring what he thinks he’s measuring, and getting it reliably.

The validity of a given personality test is its success at predicting an outcome, Krueger said. And the more systematic it is, the more predictive it will be.

“It seems like they’re trying to accomplish some kind of organized way of extracting the kind of information you would get from a recommendation…It forces people to consider all of the domains systematically…and my guess is that that’s going to be helpful,” Krueger said.

Students had mixed opinions. David Rheinstrom, a senior planning to apply for M.F.A. programs in a year, said he thought it sounded comparable to other types of application materials and had the potential to be useful or useless.

“I would be inclined to think that somebody’s personality would influence how well you do in grad school,” he said. “It’s probably just another thing to do, but who knows.”

Meanwhile, paying for a college education has become increasingly difficult for many students and families. Pressured by the possibility of mounting debts, graduating high-school seniors are often more inclined to opt for less expensive options, such as community colleges and in-state public universities.

According to a survey by the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), 50 percent of private colleges reported a decrease in their May 1 yield rates in 2009 compared to those from 2008. Only 32 percent of public universities, however, reported a decrease.

Despite the tougher competition with public schools, the University still remains a top choice among high school applicants, and the success can be attributed in part to the work of the Office of Undergraduate Admissions and its heavy investment in promoting the school and recruiting students even with fewer resources.

“Even with the current financial climate, the University has allowed us to continue our efforts. We are holding steady with our standard programs and travel,” Director of Undergraduate Admissions Julie Shimabukuro said.

These programs are components of an elaborate recruiting process.

First, the University sends viewbooks and brochures to potential applicants in areas where the University has smaller name recognition.

Freshman Elizabeth Graham recalled, “The first time I have ever heard of Wash. U. was when  [the University] sent a brochure to my house.”

Many students said that while the mailings tend to be massive, they are successful in spreading knowledge about the University.

“The materials and mailings, even if they send a lot, shows we’re interested in hooking students and getting them to come to the school,” said sophomore Aaron Kacel, a member of the Student Admissions Committee.

The next step in the recruiting process is for the admission officers to visit high schools across the United States and hold informational sessions for prospective students and families.

Not only do admissions officers advertise the school, but current students also volunteer to share their University experiences with their high schools over the winter, spring and summer breaks through the Ambassador Program.
In addition to recruiting domestic students, University representatives also reach out to potential applicants across the globe to diversify the community.

“Over the years, we have traveled to a variety of countries,” Shimabukuro said. “We have also recruited international students who are attending high schools in the U.S. We are still reviewing and developing travel plans for this year and next year.”

The admissions office welcomes prospective students and families to visit the campus to gain a personal perspective of the University. Throughout the year, students can visit the campus during special open houses and shadow Overnight Welcome Leaders (OWLs)—current University students who volunteer to host and give prospective students a snapshot of their daily lives at Wash. U.

Several times a year, the University invites a select group of high school seniors to visit during specially organized weekends, such as Discovery Weekend at the end of September.

“They [prospective students] are facing any number of options of where to go and it is a nerve-wracking process,” Kacel said. “The weekends give a glimpse into Wash. U. life and a taste of our community. They get a sense of how campus is laid out and it can push them over the edge to come.”

In the spring, admitted students of multicultural backgrounds are invited to Celebration Weekend in an all-expenses-paid trip.

During these visits, prospective students can go on campus tours, attend informational sessions, go to classes of their interests, participate in social events, or simply mingle with students to explore the University’s academic and social offerings.

“Coming to Discovery Weekend cemented my decision to apply. I was attracted to the Midwestern charm—how everyone was so friendly,” said freshman Debra Yen, who participated in last fall’s Discovery Weekend.
Having worked for the admissions office for 16 years, Shimabukuro has discovered the secret to successful recruitment.

“The admissions office just tells the stories of our current students,” she said. “If our current students are engaged in their work here and are positive about their experience, they and their parents spread the word and make it easy to recruit other students.”

Junior Becca Dirks said her decision to attend the University began with the mailings.

“I had never heard of Wash. U. until they sent me a bunch of stuff in the mail. I think Wash. U. does a very good job of advertising,” Dirks said.

But Dirks also said that she could see the other side of placing too much money into promotion.

“I think it’s very important to recruit for new classes. At the same time, I know that other areas need that money,” she said.

The new policy, called Score Choice, will allow students to choose which of their SAT and SAT Subject Test scores colleges and universities will be able to see.

Score Choice will become available to high school students who take the tests in March 2009.

As of now, when a student sends scores to a school, every College Board test the student has taken appears on the score report.

According to the College Board’s Web site, the new policy is “designed to reduce student stress and improve the test-day experience.”

“I think that would definitely help for stress relief because it means with the exception of the financial burden of taking the test multiple times, there’s really no downside to it,” said sophomore John Hergenroeder, who took the SAT more than once when applying to college.

But Hergenroeder said that the new policy would have led him to take the test more.

“I’m not really the sort of person who gets super stressed out about tests, so I don’t think it would have been a big deal for me, but I think that I would have taken advantage of [Score Choice] just because I could have discounted the lower of the two scores,” Hergenroeder said.

While many schools including MIT, Harvard and the University of Chicago have supported the new policy, other schools do not, and still want students to submit all of their scores.

The Office of Undergraduate Admissions did not respond to phone calls and e-mail requests. Washington University, like most other schools, uses test scores in the context of a prospective student’s entire application.

Some schools are discouraging students from using Score Choice, saying it might cause prospective students to hurt their admissions chances because schools vary in how they use the scores in admissions decisions. Several schools have a policy of only considering a student’s highest score, while others combine the highest scores from each subsection of the test.

Georgetown University’s Web site says that students must send all scores from all of their SAT, ACT and SAT Subject Test sittings.

According to the Web site, “access to your full testing profile enables the admissions committee to fully and fairly assess your individual strengths in comparison to the entire applicant pool.”

Yale, Stanford and Cornell universities will still require students to submit all of their scores.

Opponents of the policy argue that it will only further benefit wealthier students, who can afford to take the test multiple times. A single sitting of the test costs $45, not including the cost of reporting scores and other optional services—some students’ families hire testing coaching services, which can cost thousands of dollars.

“If you only have to submit one score, you can obviously keep taking it as long as you can afford it, and the test fees continually go up,” Hergenroeder said. “So I can see it getting expensive to take the test four or five times.”

The ACT already allows students to pick what reports to send. The College Board plans to alert students if any of their schools require all tests to be sent. For universities, it is often difficult for schools to tell if students have really sent all of their scores.

If a student chooses to send a score from a particular test date, all subsection scores are sent. Students cannot send individual subsection scores. Students still see all of their scores on reports sent to them. Score Choice only affects scores sent to colleges and universities.

There is no additional cost to send scores using Score Choice and students may still opt to send all of their scores.

The College Board offers fee waivers to qualifying students, but imposes limits on how many times a student can use the waivers.

It may be true that the University only considers an applicant’s financial background as a negative factor in a small number of cases. But as a University committed to the ideal of educating people who have earned admission to the University, it is important that the University adopt need-blind admissions policy in order to make a statement about its ideologicapl beliefs. And even though only small number of students may be rejected because of their parents’ finances, it is still unjust discrimination that has lasting implications for the students affected; this is still a practice that significantly undermines the University’s commitment to its mission. Even if it is small, it is still discrimination based on socioeconomic status, a wrong the University must correct.

With a smaller endowment revenue and donors who have informed the University they are uncertain if they can contribute in the future, now is certainly a difficult time for Wash. U. to adopt a need-blind admissions policy. Adopting a need-blind admissions policy would certainly require some sacrifice. But on a deeper level, now is the most important time for the University to announce a policy on considering applicants regardless of their financial need. Adopting this policy in a time of economic uncertainty would serve to erase doubt about the University’s priorities and serve as a reassurance to both students and applicants that they will have the opportunity to receive the highest-quality education regardless of their financial circumstances.

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