Discussion: Wash U

You went there, yes? Arts & Sci or Engineering School?

yes, engineering school...civil.

Ah. So you knew what you were going to do when you got there. Bman worked in a lab at Wash U last summer, but WU hasn't done a good job of marketing themselves. Since he's undecided for major, no departments have shown any interest and he didn't get invited for an overnight. View into student social life is almost nonexistent. Puts them at a big disadvantage to Harvey Mudd.

Then again, if he's considering Harvey Mudd which, last I checked (which was a long time ago), only had 4 majors, he could have just told the relevant departments at Wash U that he was very interested in them.

i just scheduled an overnight stay, didn’t think you had to have an invite for one ? anyway the stay was what sealed the deal, i loved the campus but hated the classes (i stayed w an architecture student bc that’s what i thought i wanted to do). but then i asked to switch my application to the engineering school and the rest is history.

We called WU on the 16th. For Arts & Sci, they've gone to an invite only thing for overnights. We were watching the communications for info regarding overnights, which all the other schools sent out at the beginning of April. We asked if there was anyway to schedule an overnight. Short answer: no invite, no overnight.

The only thing from WU was for a visiting day on April 9. They had 7 hour-long sessions including a campus tour, Life in STL outside of WU, and Religious Life at Wash U. Absolutely nothing on dorm life, social scene, or meeting/talking to current students. They didn't even feed them lunch at a dining hall.

I agree, he coulda/shoulda been more proactive about getting some attention from specific departments, but a connection between an overnight invite and departmental interest was not expected (if it exists). We're just guessing that it's because he's 'Undecided'.

HMC has a lot more than 4 majors now + majors at the other 4 colleges in the consortium.

all things being equal, i recommend an out of state school vs. local. and i believe on limited research HMC and WU to be relatively equal, if not HMC having the upper hand in sciences. so he can’t go wrong!

Yaya will probably go to school in Australia, simply to be as far away from us as possible.

Yep, no bad choices. Agree with out of town experience... just wish it wasn't LA.

He committed to HMC last night, so the decision agonizing is over. Smaller class sizes, much more intimate experience, no grad students in the labs, more access to profs. Those were the perceived benefits to HMC. He figured he'd be fine at WU wrt dorm/social life, so he took that out of the equation.

All of his advisers at school think that HMC "screams 'Benjamin!'".

Zan was accepted by WU. she had minimal interest and they offered a very non-competitive aid package compared to Chicago and Williams [where she went].
One of MO's top math students from a few years back went to HMC and loved it.