For students finding themselves drowning in a sea of Ivy League failure, Saint Louis University is now considered a life preserver. SLU has been named one of the top 50 “safety” schools in the country by the Wall Street Journal.
The article, which appeared in the March 30 edition, listed the top 50 schools that students turn to after the Ivy League.
The list included 11 “new Ivies” such as Duke and Georgetown, 11 “safe” schools including Boston College and Washington University, 17 “safer” schools, where SLU was categorized, and 11 “safest” schools such as Gustavus Adolfus and Southern Methodist University.
“There are very few Midwestern schools on the list, so we’re assuming this will give us a prestigious light to the schools on the East and West coasts,” Admissions Director Scott Belobradjic said. “This is absolutely a good thing.”
Belobradjic pointed out that the rankings had a lot to do with admissions statistics and acceptance rates.
“We have one of the highest admission rates on that list, but we are still considered prestigious. That has to say something for us,” Belobradjic said. “To move up on the list, we’d have to drastically lower our admission rate, and that would change the image of SLU.”
Belobradjic said that SLU offers many of the same things as other Catholic universities such as Georgetown and Boston College, but that SLU is much more accessible.
The article also quoted Joseph Eble, a SLU freshman who was accepted to 47 schools.
“I was accepted at a lot of schools, including some Ivy League,” said Eble in a University News interview, “but I’m extremely pleased with where I’m at. SLU is better than the Ivies in a lot of ways.”
Eble continued, “When you go to an Ivy League school, that’s who you are. `I am Harvard’ or `I am Princeton.’ Here, we’re all part of a community working together and doing many different things. That’s my self-definition: `I am part of a larger community.”
Eble, who had a 4.26 weighted GPA, 1530 SAT score and was valedictorian of his Washington, D.C., Jesuit high school, said the Jesuit influence and a Presidential scholarship were the biggest factors that influenced him at the time for choosing SLU, but he has since found countless others.
“I’m really enjoying the Jesuit environment: getting to know the priests, participating in Campus Ministry activities, the Pro-Life club and going mass,” Eble said.
The Journal article said they surveyed guidance counselors, college officials and applicants from around the country.
“We have a program where we bring in high school guidance counselors to show them the campus and what we have to offer,” Belobradjic said.
He continued, “People who come to campus come first of all because they’re interested in an academic program. But once they get here, they comment on the physicalities, from laboratories to fountains, and also on the way students treat each other. That’s something you just can’t market.”
