<p>I said nothing about any school except for Williams. Why would I want to?</p>
<p>And the Annual “Zimmerman Telegram” Delayed Response Award of 2009 goes to commserver.</p>
<p>Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore and Pomona are likely the hardest LAC’s to get into (understand that applicant pools to some degree self-select- MIT has a higher percent acceptance rate than, say, Stanford, but it is not less selective). The next tier includes some great schools including Bowdoin, Midd, Wes, Haverford, Carlton, Davidson etc. Also highly competitive but not quite on the level of SWAP.</p>
<p>I always thought that the marginally higher acceptance rate at Williams stemmed from its isolated location, so a fair amount of students never bother applying. </p>
<p>In addition, Williams has a reputation (fair or not) for being caucasian. While I know that the composition of the student body has changed in recent years, this bygone reputation may affect some deciding whether to apply. </p>
<p>Another factor (again, fair or not) is that Williams has a reputation for emphasizing athletics, my current english professor (an alum) says that this is warranted, but obviously I am no authority. Some students may not find this attractive. </p>
<p>So what I mean to say is that while Williams has a higher acceptance rate, I think the school is no less selective than say Amherst, Swarthmore, etc., because much of the weeding out is done pre-application. These are all just guesses based upon some of the factors I used to make my decision on matriculating at Williams. Perhaps I should not have bothered applying if I had these reservations, but I wanted to cast a wide net. (And the Williams transfer app was due one month after all the others, haha)</p>
<p>And, incidentally, the acceptance rate at Williams this year was actually 16.7%:</p>
<p>[Williams</a> College Admits 1,182 Students for Class of 2016 | Office of Communications](<a href=“http://communications.williams.edu/news-releases/williams-college-admits-1182-students-for-class-of-2016/]Williams”>Williams College Admits 1,182 Students for Class of 2016 – Office of Communications)</p>
<p>^^^before factoring in wait list action and summer melt.</p>
<p>Application numbers for Williams seem to vary far less than numbers at some of its peers. They had their banner year when admitting the Class of 2012 (so in 2008). In the 90s and early 2000s, Williams consistently saw more applications than most of its peers. That began to change shortly after 2000. Here’s an historical look at application numbers at Williams and Middlebury since 2005.</p>
<p>WILLIAMS
CLASS YEAR: FINAL APPLICATIONS
2005: 4,656
2006: 4,931
2007: 5,341
2008: 5,704
2009: 5,822
2010: 6,000
2011: 6,448
2012: 7,548
2013: 6,017
2014: 6,634
2015: 7,030
2016: 7,067</p>
<p>MIDDLEBURY
CLASS YEAR: FINAL APPLICATIONS
2005: 5,391
2006: 5,278
2007: 5,298
2008: 5,041
2009: 5,256
2010: 6,184
2011: 7,185
2012: 7,825
2013: 6,904
2014: 7,984
2015: 8,533
2016: 8,847</p>
<p>Amherst has seen increases similar to Middlebury’s numbers. I’d be interesting in hearing why folks think that applications to Williams seem to have tapered off.</p>
<p>I think the answer is clear: Williams, until the class of 2013 applied, did not have a mandatory supplemental essay question. Starting with that class (I am almost postive that was the year this changed), Williams required a brief, Williams-specific essay in addition to the common application. Amherst has that essay as well, but it has had it for a long time, so its upwards application trend was never affected by recent introduction of that essay. Most of Williams’ peers, I believe, do not, and any school that has such a supplement will undoubtedly suffer a drop in applications. </p>
<p>So, students who were marginally interested could no longer apply to Williams with the click of a button, weeding out a lot of kids from the application process. There was a precipitious drop in application volume at that point, followed by a very gradual increase since that time. I think in addition, as others have said, Williams’ relative isolation also weeds out some students who may apply to some of its peers. Williams still ends up with, along with Amherst, Pomona, and Swarthmore, the most qualified student body year-in and year-out, so fewer applications in this case probably ends up just meaning fewer people who would likely just be rejected, or accepted and choose to go elsewhere as Williams was never a top priority. Unsurprisingly, Williams generally has the highest yield of the top liberal arts colleges (very close to 50 percent), so the school does a good job of identifying and selecting students who are eager to attend (partially through a heavy emphasis on ED admissions). </p>
<p>I do think, however, Williams could also do a slightly better job of outreach to applicants. So few people have heard of Williams (like most liberal arts schools) to begin with, and the school does very, very little aggressive marketing to reach more applicants and to get its name out there. Even having a name as generic-sounding and easily-confused as Williams I think is a disadvantage in terms of reaching the masses, “Amherst” and “Middlebury” and “Swarthmore” just SOUND more impressive / memorable. The admissions website is not great (although the school’s entire website is being relaunched this fall, so hopefully it improves), for example, there isn’t even a virtual video tour on the site. But really, even with better marketing, I don’t think Williams would ever have much over 8000 applicants, and since the school ends up with exactly the type of class composition it wants, there seems to be no real harm to the current approach other than the inability to gloat over a slightly lower acceptance rate.</p>
<p>I don’t know how prevalent this sentiment is, but I found the Williams supplement essay to be a pain. My essay was easily the worst I have ever submitted, and the essay prompt leaves little room to use material from other supplements. In hindsight, perhaps this is somewhat indicative of the essay bearing little weight and being utilized for culling more than anything.</p>
<p>I can’t believe you guys spent this much time producing responses scoped to subcellular granularity.</p>
<p>^^^you must be new here.</p>
<p>ephman wrote:
</p>
<p>Here’s an idea whose time may have arrived: a Chief Marketing Officer for colleges:
[Marketing</a> Pros: Big Brand on Campus - WSJ.com](<a href=“http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444233104577591171686709792.html]Marketing”>http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444233104577591171686709792.html)</p>
<p>I think that the creation of the common appllication has affected a lot of admission numbers. It is so easy now to just throw in another application, just to try. Why not? So it costs $50 or so, which is nothing compared to the cost of college. Everyone’s addmission rates went down. And the easier it is to apply to that college (that is, no supplemental essays) then the more they went down. The situation at Williams is undoubtedly linked to this: put in a supplemental essay and fewer marginal students are going to say “what the h-ll.” That means fewer applications, and a higher admission rate.</p>
<p>^^^Spoken like a true Williams/Amherst student and/or wannabe.</p>