<p>Look back to last year's threads about this time. I vaguely remember (could be wrong) that waitlisted admittees were given about a week to decide.</p>
<p>Daughter received a letter from Williams admissions yesterday confirming her desire to remain on the waitlist. A few excerpts:</p>
<p>"we make no attempt to rank the waiting list until we know the size and composition of the class."</p>
<p>"as things now stand, we plan a review of still interested waitlist candidates in mid-May and will be notifying candidates shortly thereafter."</p>
<p>"we look forward to reviewing your application once again, if, as I hope, we are able to add further to our class."</p>
<p>Signed by Director Of Admissions</p>
<p>CollegeMom08, where do you live? Hopefully I'll get that letter soon. </p>
<p>Does anyone know the phone number or email address that I should use to express interest in Williams?</p>
<p>Flowersunshine:</p>
<p>It takes only one day for mail to get from Williams to my house. So, we are in the "relative local" area. </p>
<p>Also note in the last excerpt I quoted above that its states they look forward to reviewing the application IF they are able to add further to the class. So still no confirmed word on whether they will go to the waitlist or not. </p>
<p>Good Luck to everyone.</p>
<p>flowersunshine:</p>
<p>From the Williams Admission website ("Contact Us"):</p>
<p>"Williams College Office of Admission
Bascom House
33 Stetson Court
Williamstown, MA 01267</p>
<p>Phone: 413.597.2211
Fax: 413.597.4052</p>
<p>E-mail: <a href="mailto:admission@williams.edu">admission@williams.edu</a>"</p>
<p>I anticipate very few if any being pulled from the waitlist. As of 4-29-08 they had about 85% of the class full with several hundred yet to decide. Good luck to those who are still in the running.</p>
<p>madville</p>
<p>1) how do you know this; and,
2) isn't this almost exactly what they would have expected? With a total class of 538, and 223 already admitted (assume the yield on ED's is 100%), they would want to admit 315 more students, or 25.6% of acceptances (1229 according to the Williams Record). 85% of the total of 538 is 457, meaning they already have received 234 more acceptances. You mentioned there were "hundreds" still to decide, and by that I will assume at least 300. If that is the case, then of the total acceptances of 1229, they've heard from 929, and thus about 25.2% have said yes. In order to fill the class, they need to get a yes from 81 more students, or a slightly higher 27% of the "300" still out there. It very much depends on what you meant by hundreds. At 300, it looks like they would take a few, as the yes rate would be higher than expected. As the number of undecideds (well, they're all decided by now) goes up or down, that would seem to directly affect the wait list. Since you knew where they were on 4/29, do you know what the actual count of undecideds was at that point?</p>
<p>yes, i'm wondering how do you know this, madville?</p>
<p>If they don't go to the waitlist at all, they guessed wrong on yield. That's too close to being oversubscribed for comfort. They project yield and acceptances with an eye towards going to the waitlist for at least a few students to "top off" the class. It happens. There are years when they don't go to waitlist, but it's rare.</p>
<p>My experience with applicants over several years has been that, if one is offered a place, Williams will give him/her a few days to decide, if requested. If the call comes after the exam period is over, there will still be many students around. Some will be there only until graduation (June 1). Some will stay through reunion weekend (the weekend after graduation). There will be several hundred students around over the summer working for professors, the administration, Admission, area non-profits, athletic camps, and local businesses. Most of them will begin work around June 9th. Many professors will also be around. Admission can help you set up contacts.</p>
<p>If you are on the waiting list, be sure that Williams has several reliable contact numbers for you.</p>
<p>If you don't get an offer, try not to take it personally. Admission will be looking to top off and further round out the class. This may be the year that they have enough tuba players but not enough debaters, or vice versa. It could also be that they have put out offers to several other people whose "hook" was sculpting, and your status will depend on whether they decide to go to Williams or to RISD. At some point, it is more luck than anything else.</p>
<p>Whatever the college is looking for this year, only a small percentage of the waiting list will be given offers. If you want to have a happy, fulfilling college experience, it is very important for you to start loving the place where you've sent your deposit. If you go there, you'll probably have a wonderful experience, but that isn't likely to happen if you are still wishing you were at Williams.</p>
<p>Good luck to all of you. This is a difficult experience, but don't let it overshadow the end of high school and your last few months at home.</p>
<p>From an interview with Dick Nesbitt (Director of Admssion) in yesterday's Record:</p>
<p>"According to Nesbitt, the Admission Office will assess the situation in the next few days to determine whether to go to the waitlist. 'There is a good chance we’ll go to the wait list, but only for a small number initially,' Nesbitt said. 'We’ll probably wait until the end of the week to assess our numbers.'</p>
<p>(...) "Usually, roughly 1000 students are waitlisted, and half decide to stay on the waitlist, which has no ranking. 'We look at the assembled class and see if there are areas we can bolster given the special interests of students,' Nesbitt said. 'We try to balance the class as best we can.'</p>
<p>"Within the group of 521 confirmed students, there are 285 females and 236 males. This marks a change from the Class of 2011, in which there are more males than females. Nesbitt noted that gender balancing from the waitlist is a possibility."</p>
<p>In a small residential college in a rural area, having some female/male balance can be important. It's too bad for the females on this year's waiting list, but it is also a great thing for Williams to be so appealing to female applicants. </p>
<p>It s my understanding that a larger number of females than males apply to four-year colleges. I know that considerably more females than males are earning four-year degrees in their early 20s. In fact, this is something of a crisis.</p>
<p>If any CC readers get in from the wait list, please post about your experience (how did you hear, what was your deadline, how did the financial aid part fit in, what gender are you, why do you think you were given the offer, and so forth). It will help next year's applicants have a sense for how the process works.</p>
<p>An interesting stat on international admissions at Williams from the two Record articles:</p>
<p>1500 applicants
104 accepted</p>
<p>International acceptance rate of 6.9%, less than half of the overall acceptance rate of 16%.</p>
<p>At the information session my daughter and I attended the admissions rep stated they had not yet had to resort to affirmative action to help male applicants out because while they have more female applicants and accept them at close to the same rate, the percentage of male admittees who matriculate was greater. It may be a little tougher for girls next year now.</p>
<p>Of the 521 new members of the Class of 2012 thus far, 8.8% (46) are international. </p>
<p>See the whole article at The</a> Williams Record - Articles</p>
<p>The numbers both of international students applying and accepted each year have also steadlily increased, as word gets around of Williams's generosity with respect to financial aid (many are on close to full rides).</p>
<p>From the article:</p>
<p>“'We also saw more international applicants,' Nesbitt said. 'For the class of 2006, there were 450 international applications. This year we had 1500 international applicants, with the most from China and Korea.'”</p>
<p>6.9% acceptance rate for internationals. That's why I won't touch a "what are my chances" thread from international applicants with a ten foot pole. I mean, the honest answer is, "your chances are pretty close to zero", but who wants to hear that?</p>
<p>It does highlight that some of these plummeting acceptance rates are a bit artificial, driven by a massive increase in international applications with essentially no shot at admission.</p>
<p>I'm not sure that the actual difficulty of admissions for a qualified applicant has changed as much as the acceptance rate numbers might superficially suggest.</p>
<p>For example, if Williams is going to accept 104 international students, does accepting them out of 1500 applicants or out of 450 applicants really make admissions more difficult for a valedicatorian from Shaker Heights?</p>
<p>"your chances are pretty close to zero"</p>
<p>Not so: 7% is several orders of magnitude greater than "almost" zero -- as well as the <em>overall</em> rate of acceptance at the most well-known unis such as HYP.</p>
<p>haha, funny
I'm an international student, but is living in the US, and yes, I have noticed the discrepancy between the acceptance rates. Ex. MIT really don't like us, w/ an acceptance rate for intl of close to 3%, =(. I declined their wl.</p>
<p>so are they accepting students off the waitlist</p>
<p>Yeah, I empathize with you international students...almost makes me glad that I'm oh, from a demographic that is marginally better =)</p>
<p>I really hope they are, I would really want to go, unfortunately Williams accepted two other students from my school, both of whom fulfilled criteria that I, sadly, did not.</p>
<p>Who knows? Maybe they'll want another violin playing Chinese girl, because heaven knows that there aren't enough of them in the world already...</p>