@ivegraduatedmom I just responded to the waiting list. I have already made so many accomplishments since I’ve been put on the list. I really hope they pick me! Fingers crossed! <3
Hey all, here is my stats wrap-up to make it easier for future applicants to find.
Current college: Community College (CA)
Entering as a Sophomore (Choosing to relinquish credit)
Major: Anthro & Environmental Policy
No SAT/ACT
College GPA: 4.0 (completed college honors, TAP for UCLA, IGETC, etc)
US/Intl: US (immigrant - dual citizenship)
ECs: PTK Pres, Published, Presented research, Non-Trad, Parent, State-level policy work, loads of volunteer work, UCLA CCCP, UCB TAP, UCB SPMP, very involved on my campus and in my community.
Applied for FA: Yes (Best FA Offers were from Berkeley, Brown, and Williams, worst were Cal State and UCLA)
Applied to: Cal State, UCSC, UCB, UCLA, Amherst, Brown, Swarthmore, Williams, Yale
Accepted: All except Swarthmore (Waitlisted)
Attending: 99% certain it’ll be Williams
Comments: I had my essays checked for grammar and clarity but resisted changes to content because I felt that it was more important that I represented myself accurately than that I changed what I focused on to fit within the box the transfer advisors expected. I felt that it was better to be rejected for who I am than accepted for someone I am not; this worked out well for me. I am in my mid-thirties with a teenage daughter, I immigrated to the US in my twenties, my husband and I are transferring together and got into all of the same colleges. I have a couple of decades of work experience outside of my field and have traveled extensively. I think that this breadth of experience contributed to our unexpected success across the various types of colleges to which we chose to apply.
@RainbowBritey If you pick Williams (and I hope you do), then maybe we’ll see each other on campus! Congrats on having so many great choices.
@RainbowBritey Thank you for posting your stats! It’s so helpful to see what paths others have taken. I’m a fellow non-trad that is currently on the waitlist for Williams. If you’re willing to share, I’d love to know what it is about Williams specifically that made you choose it above the (arguably more prestigious, well-resourced, and geographically accessible/connected) Ivies?
Re the above: Williams, it should be noted, registers a substantially higher endowment per student than a school such as Brown.
https://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/college-rankings/details/EndowmentPerStudent
@sonalli Williams is much, much more well-resourced than Brown, and both are equally prestigious. Williams can be more prestigious, sometimes, depending on what you’re studying. Obviously, Yale is in its own tier with regards to prestige, but the education at Williams is some of the highest quality in the country.
Also, what do you mean by geographically well-connected? People choose Williams BECAUSE it’s so rural, not in spite of it. While Yale and Brown are in more urban environments, neither New Haven or Providence are exactly huge centers of economic activity and opportunity. All three colleges are a driving’s distance away from NYC and Boston.
@merc81 More recent numbers put Williams’ per student endowment at over $1.3 million versus Brown’s $370k per student. Yale is greater than both of those.
For further context, if things have stayed roughly the same, it looks like half of the NESCAC LACs (Amherst, Williams, Bowdoin. Hamilton, Colby) roll in with greater endowments per student than Brown’s.
@writingpumpkin03 Thank you for your response!
I should note that I would rank Williams far above the Ivies as far as my needs and interests are concerned. I wanted to hear @RainbowBritey’s perspective specifically because the considerations one has to make when deciding to attend a college vs. a university in a rural or urban environment as a non-traditional student (with a family) are quite unique. Given the similarity of our stats, it would be helpful to know which factors tipped the scale in WC’s favor.
Also, I should clarify:
I’m aware of WC’s strengths relative to those of the Ivies which is why I qualified the above statements with “arguably”.
“Geographically well-connected” was a neutral statement of fact meant to describe the urban vs. rural choice with no value judgment intended. I don’t see the rural location as a strike against Williams (quite the opposite, actually). For example, I live in NYC, and Yale was quite quick and easy to get to from the city using public transit. Williams was a (very pleasant) 3-hour drive with no similar public transit option.
“Prestigious” was also neutral and intended to connote mainstream prestige and name recognition (deserved or undeserved) without regard for the obvious similarities in rigor.
@sonalli That makes a lot of sense, I think I just misinterpreted your use of the word “arguably”. But it’s clarified now 
Good luck on your admissions journey!
Anyone hear of any changes to waitlist status? I think they were supposed to start re-reviews today!
@sonalli the decision was really layered for us, we loved the community there when we visited. Williams went out of their way to include transfers to the same degree as freshmen - notifying us super early and then involving us in Previews, etc. They made a huge effort to make our family feel welcome on campus - even arranging high school tours for our daughter; an administrator lent us her car to visit Mass MOCA - these people are real and human and lovely and just so engaged. There are professors at Williams that we want to work with in each of our fields and we met with them while there and found them genuinely warm and accessible. Their class offering is pretty spectacular, we will be able to develop within our chosen areas and also enjoy exploring other interests. My husband is a math and physics major and frankly their program for pure math is pretty much unbeatable. Their physics dept is small and fascinating and really respected too. They figured out family housing on campus instead of providing us with a faceless list of links, and in so many ways they just indicated that we would be part of student life there instead of active-in-the-classroom-but-excluded-from-campus-life-otherwise which was kind of the vibe at other colleges. Also, and this was huge - we can (and will) apply to Yale, Brown, etc again for grad school, Williams doesn’t have grad programs in our fields so this is our one shot to attend there. We genuinely felt connected to Williams and we were very attracted to the small LAC atmosphere to finish our undergrad degrees. We will both be relinquishing credit to enter as sophomores which is another thing colleges like Amherst were unwilling to do - I want the time to really take advantage of all that Williams has to offer. The Oxford connection would be a gigantic draw too if I didn’t have a family and a cat to consider, a year at Oxford would be a dream, but perhaps grad school 
@alexmic007 I think you meant to post that in the waitlist thread.
@writingpumpkin03 Is there a seperate waitlist thread for transfer students? This is the only big transfer student thread I found so I’ve been lurking ?
@alexmic007 Oh, I assumed that you were a waitlisted freshman applicant rather than a transfer applicant–my mistake!