What We’re Looking For

How do your academic choices and performance help us understand your ability to thrive here? How do others describe your academic talents and skills?

We evaluate your achievement, preparation, and potential to contribute in your chosen area of study and across the university.

Your high school transcript serves as the primary record of your academic experiences and skills. We look at your whole transcript—not just your GPA—to understand the courses you’ve taken, the level of rigor of those courses, and any changes or trends in your performance over time. Some of our schools have more specific academic requirements or strong recommendations for courses we’ll hope to see, and we’ll look for evidence that you have that preparation based on your school interest. For example, applicants to Architecture, Business, and Engineering are strongly encouraged to have 4 years of mathematics including calculus. In addition, Engineering recommends that applicants have courses in chemistry and physics. Review our application guidelines for more details.

Teacher and counselor recommendations provide a complementary narrative, helping us learn more about who you are day to day in the classroom or your school community.

Standardized testing can also help us learn more about you. While WashU is test-optional, so the SAT or ACT are not required, we’ll review scores from either or both of these exams if you submit them. Additionally, whether you decide to include the SAT or ACT in your application, we’re happy to consider scores on AP exams or predicted scores on A-Levels or IB exams for students in those curricula. For students electing to share, scores on exams can provide additional information about your academic skills and readiness for college-level work.

What will you contribute to the WashU community? How have you demonstrated your character? What is important to you, and what sort of person do you hope to become?

While there is no one type of WashU student, our students have many things in common. They are collaborative, intellectually curious, creative, and demonstrate leadership in a variety of ways. They share concern for others, seek solutions, and support one another. We also know that our classrooms, residence halls, and common spaces are enriched by being a community of people with a broad array of experiences, backgrounds, perspectives, and interests.

We learn about these areas in a variety of ways. Your own writing—both what you choose to write about, and how you write about it—can help us to get to know you well. Additionally, recommendations from your teachers or counselor continue to help us get to know those qualities observed best by people who know you well.

How do you spend your time, and how have you had an impact in your family, school, workplace, or community? What have you learned from your experiences, and how have you taken advantage of the opportunities made available to you? Do you have particular skills or talents?

We are interested in understanding your engagement outside of the classroom, including extracurricular activities, family obligations, work commitments, service, or other ways you are involved.

We encourage students to follow your own interests and get involved in things that matter to you. Some students will have had the opportunity or drive to pursue activities related to their academic interests; other students may find that their extracurriculars don’t match their in-class interests, and that’s OK too. We welcome business students ready to be active in theater, or artists with a passion for debate, or a budding scientist whose main impact outside of school has been through work in the community. We look for evidence that you have found some way to make an impact or an investment in your interests or your community in whatever ways feel right to you.

While we recognize some students find leadership positions or naturally gravitate toward leadership roles, WashU’s perspective on leadership emphasizes that everyone can learn to be a leader; we encourage students not to be driven only by titles or roles, but by the impact you can make on an idea, activity, or need that is important to you.

What opportunities would you seek out on our campus? How do your academic and professional interests align with what we offer?

We hope to understand why WashU might be a good fit for you and how you have taken advantage of opportunities to get to know us better, too.

You’ll have a few ways to share this in our application. WashU has one required essay that is specific to us, where we ask you what you’d like to study and why. We hope you’ll take the time to learn from our staff and students about what makes a WashU experience great, and can reflect that in the “why” you share with us in your application materials.

And yes, we also consider demonstrated interest! Demonstrated interest matters to us because we know it will help you learn about WashU and whether you can truly see yourself here. It will also allow you to build your best application. It is a small part in our evaluation of your whole application.