Receiving a rejection from Williams in the Early Decision round is more than frustrating. For many, it is devastating. Williams is a highly-selective school, and it is also a self-selecting one. Students who apply to Williams want Williams, even more so when they decide to apply ED. We’ll go into some numbers in a moment, but the chances of getting into Williams are low enough that it isn’t a safe ED option for anyone. So, what does a rejection tell us and what should you do next?
First, some numbers. The overall acceptance rate for the Williams Class of 2029 was only The Early Decision acceptance rate was much higher at but that doesn’t necessarily mean it is easier for a student to get in ED. One needs to meet all the same standards as an Early Decision applicant, which tells us that there is something in your application that didn’t exceed their expectations. It could be grades, as anything less than a perfect transcript can be a problem. It could be scores, which are optional but expected to be exceptional when submitted. But in most cases students who apply ED to Williams are at least within the lower end of what Williams wants to see. So, what was it?
For most of the students who reach out to us after an ED rejection from Williams, the issue wasn’t quantitative, it was in the soft stuff. In this post, we’re going to break down what may have happened with your application and what you need to do now to still get into a dream school.
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An ED rejection is a tough pill to swallow. We’ve got four steps to not just get through it, but to achieve outstanding outcomes Regular Decision or Early Decision II.
Step One: Take a Break
First, you need to take a few deep breaths and give yourself a moment to reset. If you jump straight from a rejection into the next set of applications, you are going to repeat the same mistakes that led to the Williams rejection. In order to avoid that fate, you need to pause. Do something purely for fun. Give yourself a few days, and definitely catch up on sleep. Then, get back to work.
Step Two: Strategize
The first active step you need to be taking to move towards your next round of college admissions is to create a plan. Making a plan, of course, relies on an understanding of what went wrong with Williams to not at least garner a deferral.
We haven’t seen your application, so we can’t tell you why it wasn’t seriously considered. But there are a few things that are common potential issues. The first, and often most glaring, is quantitative.
About half of applicants chose to in the most recently reported admissions cycle, and those who did send scores did so because they were confident in them. It wasn’t required, so why would you submit anything low? For Williams, an SAT of 1535, or an ACT of 34 are the starting point. If you don’t have those, and you have weak spots on your transcript, we know where at least one problem was.
Williams has not reported the GPA distribution of accepted students in recent years, but we know for sure that they expect exceptional grades in the hardest classes that you have access to — especially in the subject(s) that you propose pursuing in college. While a weaker grade early in your high school experience can be offset by strong SAT or ACT scores, an application with such a dip and no scores is easy for Williams to choose to reject.
But there is something else Williams wanted to see in your application that, if you have the grades and scores, didn’t come through: they look for a true focus of interest and passion for learning.
As you craft your Regular Decision college list, and possibly pick an ED II school, it’s likely that more than a handful of the schools that are on your list have a similar interest in the alignment between your academic interests and how you spend your time beyond the structured classroom setting. How you communicate this alignment is crucial, and we’ll get into that next. First, though, let’s talk about that college list and your overarching strategy.
Not getting into Williams does not mean that you can’t get into a similarly competitive college. It is possible, but there is a lot of work to do to prepare your applications –—and your college list — to make that possible.
You need 10 schools for the next application round. You can apply to fewer if you list is heavily weighted towards safety and target schools, but you do not need more than 10 unless some schools do not have supplements or are, like the UC system, covered by one application. Crafting 10 exceptional applications is hard, so we emphasize for our students that it is much more impactful to have 10 outstanding applications than to apply to a longer list with less attention paid to each.
Aim for 3-4 target schools, 3-4 safety schools, and 2-3 reaches. Before you categorize any school as a target, safety, or reach, look at the data through your schools, college advising system, Common Data Set reports, or “Class Profile” announcements. The numbers aren’t the only thing you should use to make decisions, but they offer critically important data that should inform your choices.
Step Three: Essays
And then there is the writing. As we have mentioned, Williams wanted to see you and to feel the passion undergirding your interests. If you were rejected despite having the grades and scores, there were massive problems with how you presented yourself as a student and community member. Something in your writing did not click, and the reader was left feeling like they didn’t want to find a space for you on campus.
We don’t know you, but we do think it’s fair to assume that you are not an unlikeable human. You are passionate and community-minded, a leader and a learner. You would have been a wonderful addition to the Williams community, but how you presented yourself didn’t show that.
Ultimately, it’s time to rewrite. Going back to blank documents is overwhelming, but it’s also necessary. Every year, we help strong students bounce back after coming to us following Early Decision rejections, and every year we work together to start again from scratch.
This is because strong college essays and supplements are grounded in exceptional writing that spotlights different aspects of you in the best possible way. Applications rejected ED are often quantitatively impressive, but the writing feels like an add-on as if the student didn’t deem it to be important. In this moment, it’s time for the writing, and the sides of you your essays spotlight, to take center stage.
Step Four: Ask For Help
The final step is to decide not to go it alone. Maybe you followed feedback from friends or parents on your Williams application, or maybe you kept it all to yourself. Either way, you need better advice. We work with driven students to change the trajectory of their college admissions experience. Closer to home, a school counselor or trusted teacher may have wisdom to share. Getting fresh eyes on your work unbiased by previous efforts is an important piece of turning this train around.
An Early Decision rejection is frustrating and overwhelming, but it isn’t the end of the world. You can still get into an exceptional school, so start today.
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