What are my chances?

Colleges and Universities A-Z College of William and Mary
1

<p>Hi there! Like all of you, I love William and Mary and hope so dearly to be admitted. I am a rising senior and would like to know what my chances are at admittance. I go to a private, college preparatory high school known for its vigorous work load. However, despite that, only minimal AP classes are offered. Also, I'm OOS white, female.</p>

<p>At William and Mary, my dream is to double major in History and English. </p>

<p>GPA: 4.06 UW, 4.18 W</p>

<p>SAT I: 2000. I have only taken this once and plan on taking it again this Fall.</p>

<p>CLASSES: Freshman year: all honors. Sophomore year: AP Euro (4) and otherwise all honors. Junior year: AP US (4) and otherwise all honors. Senior year: AP Gov, AP Calc AB, AP English, AP Latin, all other honors. </p>

<p>Extra Curricular:
President of Law Club (Junior year)
President of Mock Trial Team (Junior Year)
Active member of the Mock Trial Team (Freshman, Sophomore, Junior year) I competed at State Sophomore and Junior year.
Vice-President of National Honor Society (Senior year)
Chairman of Human Relations committee in SG (Senior year) and active participant of SG all previous years.
Student Representative of my city's historical society board.
Latin Club representative (Sophomore, Junior year)
I have been playing violin for 11 years, played in an esteemed youth orchestra, and am now playing in my high school orchestra.
I sing, am a part of a highly selective a cappella group in my high school, as well as my school choir.
I have been playing piano for 11 years as well.
Pit Orchestra for my school's musicals (Sophomore, Junior year)
I teach violin and piano lessons all year round.
Active member of Model UN (Junior, Senior year)
Tennis Team (Freshman Year)
Cross Country Team (Junior, Senior year)
Lacrosse Team (Sophomore, Junior, most likely Senior year)</p>

<p>So, hopefully it has been manifested that I love to learn, love music, love to meet new people and be active in my environment. I hope to take all that with me to William and Mary. :)</p>

<p>What could I improve this year? I'd so appreciate all of your thoughts! Thank you in advance!</p>

2

<p>Also, thinking about going ED. Please let me know what you think!</p>

3

<p>OOS is difficult, but I think you have a good chance given good grades and activities if you can raise SAT about 100 points.</p>

4

<p>Thanks so much Muckdogs07! </p>

<p>I heard that chances of admittance are raised if you apply ED. Does anyone know if that’s true?</p>

<p>Otherwise, other thoughts overall would be appreciated!</p>

5

<p>On ED- they have a much smaller pool to look at and so more time to spend with each application. They admit approximately 40% of the class on ED- so if you KNOW that you want to go there, go ED. Given your stats (and try to up your SAT a little), if you go ED you have a very good chance (IMHO).</p>

6

<p>ED will definitely benefit your chances of acceptance. Good luck with the application!</p>

7

<p>ED won’t help you very much because you are OOS. </p>

<p>You have to realize out of state is a HUGE disadvantage. W&M being a state school gets money from the state for educating Virginians. They have a very small portion OOS. </p>

<p>You have to realize that everyone says they’re from a “competitive” school; there comes a point where that becomes meaningless.<br>
ED is full of people who have extremely high GPAs, I’m talking top 5% in class and probably higher. That being said a good majority of them will probably be IN-state which automatically places them ahead of you.<br>
Your ECs aren’t bad but there are people who have just as good if not better stats. </p>

<p>The risk with ED is that if you don’t meet up well, they could decline you. Meaning that you won’t even be able to go to the regular pool. </p>

<p>You don’t want to risk that much for Early Decision if it won’t even help you that much to begin with (because you are out of state).</p>

8

<p>Actually, W&M’s student body is 65 percent in-state, 35 percent OOS, which doesn’t seem like a very small number - it’s 1/3.</p>

<p>Speaking of small numbers - the amount Virginia contributes to W&M’s annual budget has been declining every year and is now, I believe, less than 12 percent.</p>

<p>As to how W&M handles ED applicants who aren’t accepted in the ED round, this is what the website says:

</p>

<p>My daughter thinks that her decision to apply ED was probably the most helpful thing she could have done to gain admission as an OOS female, and we agree. If you don’t need to compare finaid offers, ED is a good move for you.</p>

<p>To make your application even stronger, keep up the excellent GPA, put some time into SAT prep or try a practice ACT to see if you score better on that kind of test, and write the best essays you can. Good luck!</p>

9

<p>Just a quick clarification to @DimmingLights’ post. We are definitely more selective for OOS students but maybe not quite as much as you think. We admit 25-28% of the OOS students who apply and our admission rate overall is 33% so it’s lower for OOS but not dramatically so. Additionally, applying ED can benefit any student, IS or OOS because the pool is so much smaller. It’s easier for any applicant, regardless of residency, to apply ED and be compared with fewer people.</p>

10

<p>Thanks to all of you for your help! I really appreciate it!</p>

11

<p>How important is it to interview at W&M? Are you at a disadvantage got not scheduling an interview?</p>

12

<p>Interviews are entirely optional and because we are only able to offer them at certain times, the majority of our applicants will apply without interviewing. That being said the interview is a great opportunity to add your personality to the application so if you are able to interview and feel comfortable in that type of situation, we encourage you to take advantage of it.</p>

13

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<p>@W&M Admission
Those numbers are interesting but they constitute something of a half truth. Your OOS applicants are, on average, much stronger in terms of GPA, class rank, and SAT scores than the IS applicants, are they not?
That’s why it isn’t fair to solely compare the acceptance rates. A more viable comparison would be average SAT range of OOS students (1380-1430 CR+M is the 25-75 percentile) to the SAT range of the student body (1240-1450 CR+M is the 25-75 percentile). It makes sense that the OOS students would be stronger; the applicant pool is something like 35x larger than the IS pool and you only get to take half as many. I’d also argue that you get more reach applicants from IS because they know the school while OOS applicants are more likely to have sought out W&M as a comparable school to their scores and GPA. </p>

<p>I’d also be interested in seeing the average ED student in terms of GPA, SAT and class rank compared to the average RD student. My guess is that they would be extremely similar and that you just get more students in your range during ED. </p>

<p>@OP
I think your chances are pretty good, even after saying all of that. You have good ECs with one strong focus and your GPA is good. If you have a top class rank (top 5-10%) it will help to compensate for the lack of APs.</p>

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<p>@Apicus, do we have more OOS applicants? Absolutely. Between 60-65% of those who apply are from OOS (but that is no where near 35x more than what we see from IS). The only statistical difference between the IS and OOS students we admit is in the SAT range. Our IS students take the same classes and receive the same grades as our OOS students. Yes, the mid-50% range is higher for OOS students but that’s also not to say that there aren’t plenty of IS students on the upper end (or higher of that range). </p>

<p>Our profile of enrolling students for ED is actually very similar to that of what we see at the end of the cycle. The SAT range is narrower (we’re talking far fewer students) but the enrolling cohorts are not dramatically different between the two deadlines. We work very hard to ensure that every student we admit, regardless of residency and deadline, is going to contribute just as much academically and socially to the campus.</p>