Washington University in St. Louis is a school that punches way above its regional weight by hiring the best faculty and throwing resources at everything. The campus is genuinely beautiful (Collegiate Gothic, loads of green space), and the resources are exceptional—if you want to do research, take a seminar with 10 people, study abroad, or work with faculty, WashU says yes. The academics are solid across engineering, business, and sciences, and recruiting is strong because employers know WashU students are well-trained.
But WashU has a weird brand problem: students and parents know it as a serious school, but employers outside the Midwest still code it as “good regional,” not “national reach.” You're paying elite prices for a degree that won't signal the same prestige as a comparable school on the east coast. The student body is bright but somewhat pre-professional and transactional—people are here for the resources and the degree, not necessarily for intellectual transformation. St. Louis itself is not a strong draw (nice architecture, decent food, doesn't feel like a college town), so the social scene orbits mostly around campus.
Greek life is enormous at WashU and the social hierarchy is real—if you're not in a fraternity or sorority, you're working harder to find your people. That's not a dealbreaker, just a fact. The school's resources are genuinely exceptional, and if you're serious about research, engineering, or pre-med, they'll support you. But you're also paying for a school that, while genuinely excellent, hasn't quite figured out how to make its credentials scream the way a comparable east coast school does. If you're okay being somewhat underrated, WashU is a smart choice.