Hey guys! This is Moy who’s about to apply to Williams (ED) this year. Please help me chance it or just give me some suggestions. Thanks for your advice.
Basic information: Chinese. Need Financial Aid. Could afford around $20k per year. A Junior-transfer to a U.S. high school.
GPA: 4.12 (my school has a different scale than others. Seems GPA is not important to Williams at all.)
Rank: so far 6/106 (top 10%) but school will not provide rank since I am a transfer. Of 9th and 10th grade my rank is 20/1400, almost top 1%.
Senior courses: AP Cal BC, AP Econ, AP Stats. Physics II (Honor), English (Honor), U.S. Gov’t, Religion as well as Computer Programming.
Tests: SAT: M800 CR690 W710 SAT II: M2 800 Physics 710 (need to retake?) AP: (just took in Feb) Cal AB, Physics 1, Physics C, CS. Not sure how many 5s, maybe a couple.
ECs: Student Gov’t Vice President. Dean of Club Department. Founder and Leader of CS Club. School magazine and newspaper editor. 2 yr table tennis. 2 yr tennis team. 2 yr science club. Science Olympia.
Volunteer: ~60 hrs church and community.
No big awards.
Essay: pretty unique and special (at least I think).
Hook (I do not know if it is hook or not): First generation attending to a college.
Hopefully my essay can help me stand out. I am pretty confident about my deep thoughts (JK).
I know everything is just so average. That’s the reason why I think ED could help (right?).
Thank you!
First of all, ED will NOT help you significantly. Unless you’re 100% sure that Williams is your dream school, don’t apply ED. It’s just not worth the limitation, especially as Williams may not give you as great of a financial aid package as another school will give. Other than that, you actually look like a really strong applicant: lots of leadership, great grades (Williams does care about GPA by the way, but only in relation to your peers), first gen, international… you have a lot of things going for you. The only things that stand out to me as not stellar are your test scores. I’d retake the SAT or take the ACT if I were you, and maybe retake the physics SAT test as well. Still, it shouldn’t matter given your other wonderful qualities, and if I were an admissions officer I’d definitely admit you.
Thank you Jersey. As you said, only the students who consider Williams as DS would apply it early, then I am not one of them, for I really had not as much information about any U.S. college. Basically what I can do is just exploring the website, looking for some videos, some other students’ reviews, as well as rank of course. The reason why I consider ED is because I thought it would increase the acceptance chance. Now seems not. Thank you very much. In fact, since I need a lot of FA, my choices became very narrow. Only few schools like Williams, Amherst, Harvard etc. can probably provide enough aid to me. And all of those schools are extremely selective and hard to get into. Most of other int’l students that I know never applied to FA in order to get a better chance (even some of them are not rich enough).
I never thought that my ECs would be outstanding:) I became the student gov’t president in 3rd grade and started organizing activities and being as a host for sometime. After entering middle I continued doing the same thing as a vice president until I transferred to here. Since the teachers and other staff of my Chinese school were “lazy”, almost every single event were suggested and held by me and other members of student gov’t. Dean of Club and editor are quite similar. But still those are not very attractive in my opinion. I always think good ECs will be very influencial, while all mine are inside the school.
As for scores, what scores do you think will be good?
Thank you again.
Hey Moy. As Jersey said, you are a great candidate for Williams, but though your test scores are excellent, it won’t hurt to retake them and try for a better score. As regards which score is good, anything above a 750 on your physics and above a 2200(which you have right now) should be a boost. And also to re-iterate what Jersey said, definitely don’t apply to Williams ED unless you’re absolutely sure you want to go to Williams because of your financial aid situation. If you still do want to apply ED to boost your chances, then start falling in love with the school now. That’s not very hard to do though 
Thank you very much, seanninsing. I will try to learn more about this college.
You have clearly not done enough research as to how international admissions work. There are many more colleges that offer great financial aid to international students, even though the extent of this aid is limited. The admission rate for international students seeking aid is <10% at all schools that promise to meet need. Examples of schools that offer generous financial aid to international students: Hamilton, Colby, Vassar, Reed, Swarthmore, Trinity, Tufts.
I highly recommend you look into safety schools as soon as possible. Safety schools are financially realistic as well. Being international, especially Chinese, is not helpful at all in admissions.