I’m guessing they look at home equity differently than other schools. Granted, that’s the inTuition quick calculator, not the more intricate NPC offered. Still, it doesn’t bode well.
Use the school based net price calculators. You know they are the better choice!
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Agreed that not all the 238 were admitted athletes, but I expect a sizable proportion of the 238 admits had at least one hook.
Athletic hook: Williams takes its sports seriously (has won D3 Director’s Cup 22 of 25 years), and prioritizing athletic recruiting is part of their admissions practice. Williams probably has about 70-75 recruited athletes per year with full coach support, and another 90 or so with soft support. (Sources = NESCAC recruiting guidelines (14 full support spots for football/2 for each other sport), various NESCAC school newspaper articles over the years, and this NYT article stating that 30% of Williams students are recruited athletes (with a target class of 550 per year, that’s 165ish recruited athletes). The vast majority of the fully supported recruits will apply ED, maybe some of the soft support athletes apply ED too, we just don’t know how that shakes out in any given year.
Other ED applicant groups with hooks include:
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Questbridge (around 15 per year in ED)
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WOW participants (don’t have to apply ED, but some certainly do, references in past Williams’ class profiles state that 125-130ish of total accepted students (not just ED) participated in WOW)
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URMs (based on 2021-22 CDS, which comprised anywhere from 16%-27% of the class of 2026)
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Legacy and/or development applicants (don’t have any good estimates to share)
There is definitely some overlap across these groups, but hooked applicants likely exceed at least 50% of the ED admits, and could be quite a bit larger, depending.
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Here is a guide (as of 2021) of how colleges use home equity in their EFC formulas: 2021 Home equity final worksheet for website.pdf - Google Drive
Obviously, colleges can and do change their formulas, so you would have to check this for accuracy (one way…run NPC (NOT MyIntuition!) with and without home equity).
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MyinTuition partner schools often recommend this cost estimator as a more convenient alternative to their own NPCs.
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Hi @momrath
Yeah, I was lazy and hit the first google link, which was college factual, who reports 804. (https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/williams-college/student-life/sports/)
They are admittedly not the most reliable source … for anything really. And @twoinanddone makes a good point about two-sport athletes, which cuts into the number as well.
My only point in bringing it up is that it - ED and selective D3 recruiting - is a frequent topic of conversation around here, and of course Williams is a serious presence in NESCAC athletics. The typical advice around here is that ED is largely eaten up by athletic recruit admissions with perhaps some small variances from school to school.
While I’m sure you’re right that ED is used for other purposes, I was just checking to see what the “left-over” is in Williams’ case, which I freely admit I do not know.
Edit: Ah I just now saw that @Mwfan1921 just answered my question.
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Maybe more convenient, but decidedly less accurate. I don’t find the range (see graphic result that bentwookie posted above, around post #80) as very helpful when a family is deciding whether or not to apply to a school based on affordability. I won’t go into all the differences between MyIntution and NPCs, but Vassar’s MyIntuition is still set to 2022/23 academic year costs (oops), doesn’t add back 401K contributions, nor does it include student financials.
Example: I just ran Vassar’s Myintution and NPC with exactly the same inputs, both are easy and quick to complete. MyIntuition range is $21,800 (low) - $31.3 (best) - $40.9 (high). NPC = $21,645.
Conclusion: MyIntuition could result in people choosing to not apply to Vassar if the ‘best’ isn’t affordable. Even if the low estimate is affordable, an applicant might choose to not apply because they believe the low estimate likely won’t happen…yet it seems that is the closest estimate based on the NPC (which is correctly set to 2023/24 academic year). Not sure why Vassar, or any school, would want this result.
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In actual application by the OP, Vassar’s NPC showed a probable EFC of “$70k” and MyinTuition showed a probable EFC of $69,400.
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Yes, and even the OP said they were going to check their entries for accuracy.
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How many RD admits are hooked? I would bet that not all of the hooked applicants who are admitted make it in through ED. So while ED acceptance rates may breed unrealistic hope/expectations for unhooked applicants – at some schools – it’s not as if the RD round comprises all unhooked applicants.
Let’s use Yale as an example. Their early admit rate is about 10%. Their RD admit rate is about 3%.
But, what about all those hooked admits in the ED round – the advantage isn’t really quite that large for an unhooked applicant, right?
True. But there is still some advantage in ED for unhooked applicants. Your chances might not be three times the RD rate… but they might be, oh, 150-200%ish of what they would have been RD. And if you are deferred, you get a second look.
The only schools we talk about on this site, where applying early doesn’t appear to confer much (if any) benefit, are MIT and Georgetown.
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For Yale? Yale doesn’t have ED. It has SCEA which is a horse of a different color because it isn’t a binding admission.
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Right. Forget Yale – we could could sub most schools that offer ED. My main point was that, while some ED acceptance rates are unrealistically high for an unhooked applicant, that early round still likely does confer an advantage over RD for an unhooked applicant.
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I never said that’s the case. Many RD applicants have hooks too. Full support athletes. Soft support athletes. URM. In the case of Williams, those who attended WOW. Questbridge unmatched finalists. Whatever unknown institutional priority(ies) a school has in a given year. Etc.
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I don’t have anything specific to add to the ED discussion other than to say it’s something that will become important in the near future. There are several moving parts concerning ED including the other hot topic here (financial aid), but it’ll be important to gauge how big of an advantage it is at particular schools in putting together an application strategy. My sense is that it’s a large advantage at some schools and only a marginal advantage at others. It seems like Williams may skew toward the latter, but I’d love to be disabused on that point.
Is there a chance that the MyInTuition calculation range is dramatically off? Because the low end of the Vassar estimate ($54k) is still way outside our budget and twice as much as most of the other schools. While I’d be happy to have more feasible options, I’m also happy to narrow down the options by eliminating potential schools that we can’t afford anyway.
Wookie, something can be an advantage statistically (i.e. over the entire population of applicants, it is an advantage) but NOT an advantage for a given, particular student. Both of these things can be true.
I was an interviewer for Brown (volunteer alumna, not a paid adcom) and it was frustrating how many kids did not understand this distinction. I had to muzzle myself from telling a kid “Applying early is of no advantage for you- because you aren’t getting in. Period, end of story”.
My observation is that the group of applicants where applying early vs. RD would be meaningful-- it’s a very small pool. Why? Because of the athletes (as already mentioned) but also the faculty and staff kids, the “not your garden variety” legacies but the truly mega legacies (a humanities library AND a chair in neuroscience named for grandma).
So I’d ignore the strategizing and inside baseball. Focus on a great education at a price that’s affordable.
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I think that’s true for a lot of colleges’ ED process, but not all. I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts with admissions folks, and at least some of them flat-out state that it’s an advantage. (Admittedly, they could be trying to boost their numbers though.) In fact, I just listened to a podcast with a U Chicago admissions officer (not on our list) who said that most of their admits are through ED and ED2, with little left over for RD. Of course, to your point, I understand that this doesn’t mean that someone with lesser qualifications gains an advantage in ED. Super-duper choosy schools like Brown or Chicago are going to take the best kids through either ED or RD. But it strongly suggests that, for some schools like Chicago, a strong candidate has a better chance for admission through the ED process. With schools so concerned about things like yield rate and class shaping, it makes some sense.
As an aside, I long for the days of California in the 90’s when a slightly above-average student with unremarkable ECs like me could get into a good UC at a bargain-basement price. It seems so much more complicated now.
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I don’t have a lot of insight to add to the ED vs RD debate for Williams, but I do think that if it turns out that Williams (or any other school) is your D’s clear first choice and the EFC works, your D should apply. She is a strong candidate; her odds won’t improve by applying RD.
My D was accepted to Williams RD and submitted a portfolio. She applied ED to another NESCAC, was deferred, and ultimately accepted RD, but ended up choosing Williams instead, in large part due to the strength of the art department in both studio and art history. She has had an outstanding experience – the professors, classmates, facilities, and access to the Clark, WCMA, and MassMOCA are an unbeatable combination, particularly for a rural SLAC.
I encourage you and your daughter to follow the art department and Williams College Art Museum’s Instagram accounts to get a better feel for the fine arts scene. https://www.instagram.com/williamsartdept/
https://www.instagram.com/williamsartmuseum/
Just today the Williams admission department’s Instagram account features an art student and their work which I take as a sign that the college wants fine arts students to apply. https://www.instagram.com/williamsadmission/
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The part we don’t know is, how strong are the applicants in each round, how many are hooked/unhooked, etc.? If we knew those things, we would be better informed.
But it’s hard to see an ED acceptance rate of, say, 35%… and an RD rate of 10%… and not think there is at least some small advantage to applying ED. Even if half the ED class is majorly hooked.
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I don’t think anyone has mentioned the strong possibility that being from a mountain state is also a hook.
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