Since Williams doesn’t have merit scholarships I will be applying for financial aid. I want to apply ED because it will increase my chances of admission. I’m from South Korea so what stats should I have to be competitive for ED? What is a competitive/safe SAT score and GPA? I’m aiming for ~1550, will that be enough? I don’t know my exact GPA because my school doesn’t use GPA, but when I use online converter it gives me around 3.8 (unweighted I assume). I have a perfect math score for SAT I and SAT II level 2.
Thank you
Welcome to the Williams forum on College Confidential, @geekgurl !
There are no “safe” statistics for Williams, where admissions are holistic. Holistic means that soft factors like extracurricular activities, letters of recommendation, essays, and “rounding out the class” play a role as well as scores and grades. That said, the scores and GPA you anticipate sound competitive for Williams, as you can see from the Common Data Set. Congratulations on your high school achievements!
Before applying ED as an international student, be sure to run the Net Price Calculator and explore the impact of being an international student on financial aid.
Good luck!
@TheGreyKing Thank you, I tried trying the Net price calculator but it says it cannot give accurate data for international students and doesn’t proceed. Do you know if there is another way of trying the NPC?
If you want the opportunity to compare financial offers between colleges then ED is not the way to go.
You might call either the admissions office or the financial aid office to ask your questions. Staff members at Williams are very helpful. They will connect you with someone who can help guide you.
@geekgurl, I agree that you could try calling or emailing Williams financial aid office about the amount of need based aid you might receive. Overall, Williams offered financial aid to 58% of all enrolled international students (from the 2017-18 CDS). However, they admit relatively few internationals. I don’t have the most recent admissions statistics, but for Class of 2021, they admitted only 12 international students via ED.
In order to have a chance to be one of those 12 and get substantial financial aid as well, you would have to be a truly outstanding applicant, not just in grades and scores but also in intanglibles such as talent, extracurricular accomplishment, demographics or life story.
Congratulations on a very impressive record, regarding GPA, it will be assessed in comparison to other applicants from similar schools in South Korea. Also, is there a particular fit or interest that would make Williams your dream school? Do you have a combination of interests across academic areas that would be particularly suited to Williams’ unique strengths across economics, math, sciences and the humanities. This coupled with a creative passion or spark would help round out the holistic aspect of the process pointed out in the prior posts.
@TennisParent Thank you! I’m most interested in STEM, history, polisci and music.
Should “creative passion or spark” be shown in the essays? I really like creating music (I have a personal Youtube channel and I do many things that I can as a non-professional producer), but I’m having hard time trying to fit that into one of the supplemental essay prompts.
Do an arts supplement and share something from your channel!
List your channel in the activities section as well- they can go on it listen to your work!
Also, you can cut and paste the link to your youtube video into the common app “other info” section. You have a great mix of interests that would be a great fit for Williams. For the essays, maybe discuss how your passion for music and its patterns relates to science.