The prompts for this year for the 1693 essays are up! Last week on the admissions blog, they said that they hoped to be inviting the 70 potential finalists to write the essays in the next week or two. From that group, they’ll choose 25 finalists to bring to campus in April, and eight of those students will become 1693 Scholars. You can find more details here: http://www.wm.edu/as/1693scholars/selectioninfo/index.php
Please respond to this post as you get news. Best of luck to all!!
This seems like a ridiculously hard Scholarship to get…
@disneydad It’s extraordinarily selective, but it’s the only true merit scholarship W&M has. They give a bit of money to the Monroe Scholars, but that’s just for summer research. Unfortunately, a lot of excellent schools like W&M have little if any merit aid.
@Arlmom2 So when do you think that notifications will go out? End of this week or end of next week?
@CoMoMom I’m not sure.
In my experience, W&M tends to be pretty cautious about giving time scales for much of anything in the admissions process; they clearly prefer to post after they’ve done something rather than predicting when they’re going to do so. (As I’ve mentioned before on these pages, D1 is a student there, so I’ve been watching W&M with more than average interest for the last few years!)
On the admissions blog on February 5th, they said, “As for the 1693 essay question, that will be available when those students are notified (hopefully in the next week or two).”
My guess is that this means that students are likely to be notified within two weeks from the date of the blog post, so by the 19th. But in the same quote they say they’ll post the essay prompts when they invite students, The essay prompts were posted some time this weekend.
So far, I haven’t seen any reports of anyone being invited, but in the past, the 1693 program (formerly known as Murray Scholars) hasn’t gotten a lot of exposure on CC. I assume that’s primarily because of the limited number of students involved. Given that the cc community seems to be biased toward the upper end of the scale, and the relatively active W&M threads these days, I’d expect at least a student or two (or their parents) to post pretty soon after being invited. That’s one of the reasons I started the thread, frankly.
Best of luck to your daughter (right?)
@Arlmom2 Thanks so much for your thoughts on the timing of the 1693 Scholars process. It is greatly appreciated! I let my D know what the essay prompts are for 2015–“just in case” she gets an email…
Best of luck to all the candidates! I’m so pleased that generous donors have made this program possible at W&M.
Several years ago, W&M’s endowment was the lowest of all the top 50 US News-ranked colleges. I can’t confirm that’s still the case (the info doesn’t seem to be available for free online). But this is an interesting document from the National Association of College and Business Officers, showing that W&M’s endowment currently ranks 114th among US and Canadian colleges. http://www.nacubo.org/Documents/EndowmentFiles/2014_Endowment_Market_Values.pdf
One of the things I love about this school is that it does so much with comparably little money. The wealthier schools can afford to offer more merit aid; W&M truly extends itself to do what it can in this area. This is a precious opportunity at W&M, and the kids selected each year are stellar: http://www.wm.edu/as/1693scholars/current/index.php
In our experience, the amount of merit aid at the schools DD was interested in was depressingly small - I’d convinced myself that her stats (top 1% in every statistical category) would somehow yield more offers, but it wasn’t to be, most money was reserved for those with financial need.
DD was a Monroe who roomed with a 1693, and that “scholar” money was definitely money well-spent, a most impressive young lady who brought a great deal to the school; for her part, DD was both impressed and grateful for the Monroe program - the other “honors” designations offered felt more like bureaucratic afterthoughts, with little of practical significance. (Not to say some schools don’t offer very attractive honors programs, but these weren’t in the constellation of schools she wanted to attend, or weren’t offered to her.)
I agree with @frazzled1, these programs may be limited in scope, but given the funding level of the school, are really great and effective uses of their limited budget.
I’m always struck when some billionaire gives a huge chunk of money to Harvard or Stanford, often without having attended there themselves - pretty sure these schools don’t need the money, and there are lots of quality institutions that could make good use of it, and not just to build a new football stadium.
@Squiddy and @frazzled1 I agree that W&M does a lot with the limited resources they have. D1 has gotten a lot out of the Monroe program, even though very little funding is associated with it. And a lot of the institutes at W&M make a point of hiring W&M undergrads to help with research. That’s another advantage of going to a school where the vast majority of the students are undergrads. All in all, a special place. D1’s delighted to be there, even though other schools offered her much more merit aid.
I’d like to add that there is one other scholar program that happens to cover tuition and fees during all four years, the William and Mary Scholars or WM SURE program 
It’s not a merit scholarship in the traditional sense, but its defined on the website as a group of “academically distinguished students who have overcome unusual adversity and/or are members of underrepresented groups who would contribute to campus diversity.” Many of them go on to do their own research projects. They happen to have quite a few workshops every Wednesday on some really cool topics that are open to the public.
If you end up enrolling, I highly recommend attending taking advantage of those events, especially if interested in research. There is also the Sharpe Scholar program which you can apply for after acceptances come out if interested in community based research. It basically allows you to apply for a 3,000 dollar summer grant like Monroes do, but with a classroom component. I’m always impressed by the number of research opportunities available for undergrads, even freshmen, but I do wish some more institutional aid was available.
On a side note, Jim Murray, the founder of the 1693 program was this year’s speaker during Charter Day, I’d love to hear what you guys think of his remarks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uducU0gkHHU
As I posted at the beginning of this thread, the folks doing the Admit It blog for W&M said about a week ago that they hoped that the 70 potential 1693 scholars would be notified in a week or two and that they’d post the essay prompts then. They posted the prompts quite soon after that, which I assume led to the exchange I’ve posted below. Sometimes I don’t think they realize how carefully the prospective parents and students parse their every utterance!
Suz2019 February 12, 2015
You’ve posted that “the 1693 essay question will be available when those students are notified (hopefully in the next week or two),” and the essay questions are are already up. Have the semifinalists already been notified? Or is that still slated for mid to late February?
Reply →
Admit It! February 13, 2015
@Suz2019, those notifications have not been sent yet. Our previous post just meant that the prompt would be available by the time those semi-finalists were notified. We anticipate contacting those students in the coming weeks.
@Arlmom2 Thanks for this update! It is greatly appreciated.
I just got notification from them today that is been chosen as a semifinalist… Kind of shocked, was not expecting this. I have not received a postcard but is it safe to say this is like a likely letter?
@andros12 Yes, I’m confident you can assume that if you’ve been asked to write the essays, you’ve been admitted to W&M! 
Congratulations! How did they notify you?
Also, it means you’re automatically a Monroe scholar, even if you don’t get picked for 1693. Monroe is basically W&M’s honors college. Monroes don’t get a lot of perks, but the program does attract a great group of students. Congrats again!
@Arlmom2 thanks for letting me know that! It was just a nice little email.
My son just got the email informing him he is a semifinalist for the 1693.
@IrishDadMD Congratulations to your son!!!
I’m a semifinalist for the 1693 as well Super excited! Does anyone know if it is harder or easier to be selected if you are international (US citizen living abroad)?
Congrats @apesrocks! When did you hear? Yesterday or today?
Who was the email from? Also, does anyone know if all the finalists are notified at once, ie have they all been notified?