since i now know this thread has the attention of current WashU students, anybody close to admissions know when interviews start?
MD/PhD's begun, and MD begins on Monday. That said, people in the current class that have mentioned their interview dates interviewed anywhere from October to March, I think, so don't get down if you don't hear from WashU for awhile.
I agree completely. Everyone in the first year class is awesome, and we have a ton of fun. I haven't see any arrogance. If you dropped your Wash U application, you really missed out.
The first-year class is great--we have plenty of fun, we're involved in a lot of outside activities, and I don't think I've detected any arrogance from our class. That said, I have hit a single bad apple in another class, and someone in the administration said that we seem to be more on the laid-back side. She didn't seem so surprised, though, so it may be more of a trend than an exception.
You know what? People don't criticize Wash U because they were rejected, they criticize it because they are tired of the same BS coming from their brochure and recruiting events that amount to nothing but "we are ranked by USnews!" Wash U got into top 10 because of numbers whoring, and just because they may have a pretty campus doesn't make it "impressive." St. Louis is a dump by the way, so it's also true that Wash U only get students that were rejected by other top 10 and lower ranked schools. Honestly, would you choose Wash U over Columbia or Stanford? In the end, the class at Wash U is composed of high GPA/MCAT but no life, socially-awkward gunners, and somehow the administration wants to perpetuate this so they can "beat Harvard." Now, some have claimed that Wash U is a "research powerhouse," but compare it with any ranking of research productivity using impact factor and citation as the criteria, you will see that Wash U is not even in the top 20s. The biggest myth on SDN has to be this non-existent reputation of Wash U as a good medical school; why are you guys buying into it and boosting their app numbers?
The fact is there has been no significant research at Wash U for a long, long time. They like to fool premeds into thinking they have 19 Nobel prize winners, when in fact they only have three: the economics one is unrelated to medicine, and the rest are *former* faculty members that won the prize at other institutions. You can see Wash U's desperation and insecurity when they even list people who only spent one year there, or people who just did a residency. By that standard, Havard and Hopkins would each have over fifty nobel prize winners in medicine alone!
Looks at how many HHMI and NAS members Wash U has, and compare it with say, Yale and University of Washington, two lower ranked schools. Wash U simply does not measure up, even if we focus on research alone. On the clinical side, where would you go? Barnes or UCSF Med. Ctr.? Barnes or Columbia Presbyterian? The answer is obvious.
I'd love to hear about your personal experiences that brought you to these conclusions. Personally, I don't know that much about the research side of things. Really, I've never been that into basic science research (clinical would be more my thing, but haven't had a chance yet).
As for the number-whoring, I'm under the impression that it's lessening. In past years I think the MCAT avg was up in the 38.3ish range, and I think in a letter they sent out to our parents this year the average was in the low 36's, so don't be afraid of applying if you "only" got a 33 or 34. And kids that get >36 aren't automatically socially-awkard, so you know...there're plenty of kids here that are incredibly intelligent and yet are still socially fluent. Oh, and as for the gunnerism, the first year's P/F policy really takes the edge off any potential gunners. There are a couple based on second-hand accpunts, but they seem to be the exception in the face of the overriding cooperation and community here.
Finally, I didn't really care about the number of Nobel Prize winners that may or may not have come out of here. What's that really mean for me anyways? Diddly-squat. The students here are diverse, passionate, and great in a million different ways (there are so many various interest groups and public health projects, for instance). That, combined with a very responsive administration, faculty, and staff, as well as a city and area which has been surprisingly awesome (and this is coming from me leaving possibly the best college town in the nation), really pulled me towards the school.
Oh, not to mention the fact that they're looking at capping debt for all students, building a new 12- or 14-floor building mainly dedicated to interdepartmental research, and there's pretty much money here for any worthwhile venture (i.e. funding from the Dean's Office for research rather than drawing on the lab's money, sending students to national Physicians for Human Rights conferences, creating new selectives, outfitting a new gym that occupies almost the whole second floor of the dorms, etc.).
It's worth the application and coming to the interview, and if you'd like to know more feel free to ask more questions here or in person when you visit.
-Eats
We all loved them.
