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Washington University in St Louis


April in CA
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Hello Everyone!

My son just received a booklet of scholarship applications from Washington Univ in St Louis. He is interested in studying engineering. We live in CA and until the flood of college info started coming last year had never heard of WUSL. But, if they are interested in potentially offering scholarships, we are interested in finding out more!

 

Do any of you have any knowledge to share about this school? Is it homeschool friendly? Is it big/small? How expensive? Good for engineering? In the middle of town or outside? Good graduation rate? Do graduates get good jobs? Anything else you can think of?...

 

Thanks for your help! We are going on vacation to AR soon and may be able to get up to St Louis if this is too good to pass up. We are already planning a jaunt down to Longview, TX to see ds's #1 school (so far), LeTourneau University, so if anybody has a suggestion of other schools to look at while there, please let us know! Thanks again!

Blessings,

April

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In the middle of town or outside? Good graduation rate? Do graduates get good jobs? Anything else you can think of?...

 

 

 

not really much help for an incoming freshman. But from the perspective of a someone who graduated from there....

 

I have no idea how Wash U is these days nor how they treat homeschoolers. I graduated from there in 1990 with a business degree from the Olin school. so... had to chime in a bit...

Wash U has a good rep for engineering. I had lots of friends in the engineering school. I don't know the current rank for undergraduate engineering programs, but the last time I read one of the magazines that alumni office sends out, Wash U's graduate program in engineering is #13 in the nation. (don't know undergrad. sorry)

 

The main campus (which is called Danforth campus these days) is located on the west end of Forest Park, which puts it on the edge of the St. Louis city limits in the suburbs called Clayton and University City. Some buildings are physically located in the city of St. Louis. It's right on the edge of the limits. LOL.

Very nice location. Clayton $$$ and is the business district of the county of St. Louis. U-City is very diverse. Lots of professors from Wash U live there and lots of families. My dh lived there as a kid.

 

oh yeah, I know.... no one calls it Wash U these days. But I'm old. that's what we called it. Of course we pronounced it WaRsh U and just said the R was on loan on Ha'va'd since they weren't using it. :lol:

 

It is very well respected in the St. Louis area by major business. They spent $$$$ there.

 

It's worth a visit in my opinion. I hadn't heard of it when I was in 11th grade. Got one of those brochures and went out on P.F. weekend (perspective freshman) and I fell in love with it and my parents did too. We lived in Virginia

 

tuition was expensive back then.... gone up. admission is very competitive. digging through the stats... they get about 22,000 applicants each year and about 1300 are admitted. (undergrad stats.) that's for all of the programs, not just engineering.... not sure the average incoming freshman size in engineering. I'm sure the admissions office would help you.

 

well... I don't know what it is like these days. But I received my undergrad there. I had friends in engineering who got into very competitive graduate schools and some who were hired from undergrad at big companies. That will all vary based on other stuff of course.

 

If you're going to be close enough and have interest in it, schedule a visit. The engineering schools are expanding and getting newer buildings.

 

-crystal,

Washington University, Olin School of Business

class of 1990 BSBA, human resources.

Edited by cbollin
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a friend's son will be a freshman there in a couple of weeks. He got a nice package from the business school. Full tuition scholarship from the college of business for four years (I'm sure he has to maintain a certain GPA to keep it). His parents are covering room and board (not sure about books) and, living on-campus, it is going to run them about $13,000 a year for that. He finished 3rd in his public high school class of about 650, earned an IB diploma, had several AP courses (not sure how he did on his exams???), was a National Merit Finalist, and earned a 34 on the ACT. Just wanted to share some stats of someone who was recently accepted with a nice package.

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I don't know if Washington University will be the right "fit" for our oldest daughter, but I do remember reading (perhaps from U.S. News and World Report) that they were ranked #12 in the country.

 

I don't know if I mentioned this in my previous thread about Washington University, but I was told that the average incoming freshman has an ACT score of 32, so in terms of standards, it's very high.

 

It is an expensive school---upwards of $36,000 per year, not including room and board, and they do require incoming freshmen to live on campus unless they live within 25 miles of the school (i.e., in the regional St. Louis area). I remember being very impressed with the quality of the buildings---some of them pretty "ritzy", IMO, compared to normal college campuses. It is very close to Forest Park and some other neat amenities of the St. Louis metropolitan area), and is in a nice area of town.

 

It has a top-notch medical school and law school, as well, plus many other graduate programs.

 

HTH!

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I don't have a LOT of personal information, but I went to school across the park at St. Louis College of Pharmacy, and know a few people that have gone there. Most of my knowledge is twenty years old, though.

 

For example, I had no idea that they didn't call it "Wash U" anymore. :)

 

Anyway, even though it's on the border of St. Louis city and Clayton, the area still has an urban feel. Clayton has a downtown of it's own. Suburbs, to me, mean cul-de-sacs and subdivisions. I feel very much in the city when I'm there. I worked for a while at a pharmacy in Clayton, and it was an interesting patient mix that ran the gamut from the wealthy upper-class to poverty stricken.

 

As for St. Louis, I love St. Louis. If I had to live in a city, St. Louis would be it. It isn't without it's problems, but I enjoyed living there, made friends easily, and for the most part found the people friendly.

 

But many people I know who attended Wash U (and bear in mind, this was twenty years ago - at least), have remarked that the school has a very "East Coast" feel. Many of the students come from some of the nations elite prep schools. All due respect to our friends from the East Coast, but the people there have a reputation (whether it's deserved or not, I can't say), of having a bit of a harder edge. The small town farm kids I grew up with found the atmosphere on campus unfriendly and intimidating. This assessment comes from a friend who actually graduated from there, so while a couple of people might have sour grapes because they may have not cut it academically, even my friend who did well felt that way.

 

That being said, a friend of my best friend's son, who is also a small town farm kid, is attending there now and loves it, so perhaps my friends were there at a particularly bad time, or maybe I just have friends who are social misfits and thin-skinned wimps. :)

 

Best of luck in your college search. St. Louis is a neat city, and academically you can't go wrong with Wash U.

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I attended Wash U for a year in 94-95 as an exchange student. I LOVED it there, I attended the enginerring school (mechanical engineering) and took both undergrad and graduate classes. I would be very pleased if one my kid would want to attend there (with scholarship :lol: because there is now way we can pay the tuition, my own tuition exemption was entered incorrectly and I about passed out when I saw the bill! :eek: Luckily, they fixed it rapidly)

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We visited WUSTL in June. My ds is also considering going into engineering. We also got tons of paper mail from them. The US News ranking for their graduate engineering program was #46 I think. Don't know what the undergrad ranking is. But anyway, seems like it would be good for engineering which is why we went. Their ranking as national university was #12 (tied with Northwestern University).

 

It's a fairly small school, which attracted us--I found the numbers at one point and I think it was something like 11,000. It is very competitive, but also, very homeschool friendly. They don't have any extra requirements for homeschoolers--it's the same application process for everyone. They also don't require SAT 2's (but all the same, since it's so competitive I would submit them if you have them--they are looking for academic excellence.) If you can, definitely visit--AND have an interview while you're there. They openly state that an important factor in admissions is the interest the student shows in the school--and visiting and interviewing are high on their list of interest-showing activities (the interview might even be required, I'm not sure.)

 

The campus is beautiful--lots of new buildings (all in the style of the original buildings), and even the older ones, which date from the early 1900's, are beautifully maintained. The library is incredible. The dorms we saw on the tour were brand new, and just gorgeous. More new dorms are being built and the older ones being renovated. Aesthetically, of all the campuses we visited on our trip, this one won the prize!

 

St. Louis is a big city, so there are all the attendant advantages and disadvantages of that. Lots to do, but one of the faculty members we met with emphasized the need to be "city smart", even on campus (i.e. be careful of theft) and especially off campus--i.e. don't walk along plugged into your Ipod, be aware of what's going on around you, etc.

 

Wash U also seemed very friendly. The admissions office is extremely friendly and helpful--they set up everything for us and mailed us the itinerary and everything way in advance. It is almost worth the entire visit alone to meet and interact with the secretaries in the admission office! :001_smile: We also saw several other evidences on campus, just talking to people and overhearing other interactions that suggested friendliness.

 

It is a very expensive school--right up there with the Ivy's and maybe more. It was the most expensive of the schools we looked at in that price range. A scholarship would definitely help! Thankfully they do offer some scholarships. Be aware though, that you have apply for these separately--consideration isn't automatic with the application.

 

Anyway, it's definitely a school worth looking into. The engineering seemed to be good, but Ds ultimately decided not to apply because of the music situation, which turned out not to be as good as we'd hoped, and that's an important factor for him.

 

HTH

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