brittany2009

i was deferred. the admissions officer i talked to gave me a further explanation on my situation and did essentially tell me i should be in now and will almost definitely be in RD...but i still have my doubts. apparently the outlook is not good for deferred kiddos. this sucks.

3girls

What did you ask, and what did they say? Why did they say you weren't in now?

brittany2009

well, i called an admissions officer i've known and have been in contact with for like six months, so it was a personal conversation. i had no other way to get my decision, so i asked her to tell me. she said that, of the ~200 spots allocated for ED, 100 or so were for athletes, and they were mandated to accept a certain number of legacies, donors, etc. when it came down to it, she told me, they had about 30 legitimate spots for which to make decisions. sucks. since you asked, they told me that my 3 readers gave me the highest of recommendations and that, "even though it is unusual for deferred students not to have trouble getting in during RD," i should be ok and she had a good feeling about it. so... yeah. :-\

461662

I heard Williams can only priority mark 66 applications for athletes, and that 14 alone go to football

brittany2009

can't tell you more than i told you, haha. that is what the admissions officer told me.

461662

still, 66 is a lot- 15% of the class or so

large t-rex

had I known that half the class were reserved for athletes, I would not have applied early.

461662

I feel like 1/2 is an exaggeration, hyperbole, whatever you want to call it. williams is good at sports, but not that good.

brittany2009

well, i don't really know why an admissions officer would tell me that 100 spots were taken for athletes if they weren't.

mythmom

There are rules for tipped athletes in NESCAC schools that would not allow 100 tipped athletes, so I do think this is a bit of an exaggeration, but like most exaggerations, gets at the truth.

A large chunk of the ED pool is devoted to athletes, legacies. URM's, and geographical diversity. Truly exceptional students who don't fit any of those categories (because those students are exceptional, too,) will also be accepted. However, no school wants to fill its entire class from ED applications, so some desirable candidates will be deferred.

kwu

Hm, I had a compelling and articulate tour guide, and I went on a sunny, beautiful day in late April. Thus, I fell in love. And, yes, Williams College is a Horrible College

I also heard that the number of reserved spots was 70 at the NESCAC schools.

MikeyD223

Its actually 66

large t-rex

do you know what percentage of the ED applicants were deferred?

Ephman

There are 66 tips at Amherst, Williams and Wesleyan. The other NESCAC schools all have a few more, around 72 I believe, perhaps more in some cases. But, another group of athletes are "protects," so I am sure the 100 number provided by the officer factors those admits in. Tips generally would not get accepted without help from a coach, while protects are students who would be strong candidates anyway based on other qualifications, but the coach want to be certain they are flagged as a potential impact athlete as well.

Despite Williams' well-deserved reputation for athletic excellence, it is certainly not an outlier in the conference in terms of percentage of recruits on campus. Indeed, on a percentage basis, the school has far fewer tips than most NESCAC schools (Williams is the fourth largest school in the league, yet is tied for the fewest number of tipped athletes). Moreover, Williams has the most varsity sports of any NESCAC school (some schools do not have varsity wrestling, skiing, women's golf, and/or crew programs, and conn college has no varsity football), so the recruited athletes are distributed among more teams.

MidwesternDad

There were 616 ED applicants this year. In the past they have taken around 225 in ED.