I was looking through the last few years’ worth of Williams’s common data set, and the applications went like this:
2014-15: 6,316
2015-16: 6,883 (increase of 567 applicants, a 9% increase)
2016-17: 6,985 (increase of 102 applicants, a 1.5% increase)
2017-18: 8,593 (increase of 1,608 applicants, a 23% increase)
And this 8,593 number might actually be low since Williams’s press release about the new class said that they received 9,559 applications for the class of 2022. (Speaking of which, does anyone know which is accurate?)
I thought of things that normally drive more applications at other schools like:
Improvement in USNWR ranking: Nope. It’s still #1, like it has been forever
Removing a requirement like SAT Subject Tests or SAT/ACT: Nope. No change in the application requirements AFAIK.
Waiving application fees: Nope. Still the same fees, I believe.
Did something happen last year to make the number of applications spike up so dramatically?
Williams admitted 1,253 out of 8,593 for the Class of 2021. For the Class of 2022, Williams admitted 1,163 out of 9,559, so about 1k increase in applicants. One of the suspects, I’m sure, has to do with the ever decreasing selectivity rate among top national colleges. For the Class of 2022, there were 14 top colleges with single-digit selectivity rate that forced many students to apply to more colleges to increase their chances (fact or not) as well as to cast a wider net across both national (and international) and LAC colleges.
Many lacs saw a big increase in applications last year, such as Bowdoin, Bates and Hamilton. At an info session for another NESCAC school, they said they had experienced a big increase in International applicants. That combined with domestic applicants applying to more schools, and schools doing more outreach to low income students is probably the reason apps went up. Bates dropped their essay last year which was one of the reasons for their increase.
I believe Williams dropped their requirement for SAT IIs in the fall of 2016, which was probably partially responsible for the 23% jump in applications seen in the CDS for 2017-2018. I remember this because that’s the year my daughter applied and she had already signed up to take the SAT II before she found out that Williams had dropped the requirement.
They both are. The CDS info is published the following fall. So the admissions information for freshman entering fall 2017 is published in the fall of 2017 and is called the 2017-2018 CDS. They haven’t yet published the 2018-2019 CDS, which will include the numbers seen in the press release for the class of 2022.
I would agree with @wisteria100 that international applicants were a major factor in the increase in the number of applications from 2016 to 2017. In 2016 (Class of 2020) Williams received 1187 applications from internationals; in 2017 (Class of 2021) they received 1890, an increase of 703 or 59%. Thus international applications represented 44% of the increase in applications from 2016 to 2017.
I’d be interested to know if Williams experienced the same kind of increase in international applications from 2017 to 2018, but I haven’t been able to find relevant figures. Other LACs experienced significant increases. Bates says their international applications increased 105%!
This quote is from an article in the Williams Record on class of 2021 admissions.
Despite this effort to recruit more and more internationally, Williams international admit numbers have remained about the same: 2020 100 admitted, 2021 95 admitted, 2022 103 admitted.
Also, the quality of the applicant pool is also important to consider as well as the actual number of applications. My sense is that with the increasing number of applications there is a wider pool of strong applicants both nationally and internationally. Rankings such as USNews and Forbes can be a factor in drawing applicants from the South and West Coast and internationally. The drive to increase the diversity of the pool leads to new groups of students applying and has the benefit of making the school overall more appealing. Williams is definitely becoming one of the top choice schools for a wider audience of students.
My son applied to college last year. Williams sent him a ton of mailings. One large postcard said ENDOWMENT in huge letters and explained why for many applicants it mattered that theirs was huge. He never toured Williams but did apply. Maybe all this marketing works.
Great to know they are marketing and targetting great students, did your son receive similar mailings from Amherst and Pomona? It would be interesting to know if similar schools have the same marketing lists or methodologies.