Hi!! I am an out of state applicant from NJ planning on applying next year Early decision but some girl told me that out of state applicants have a 12% acceptance rate and that W&M’s acceptance rate of 33% only applies to instate applicants. Is that correct?
@Savannah23 William & Mary’s overall acceptance rate is approximately 33%. Given the fact that approximately two thirds of students are instate, the out of state accpetance rate is approximately 31% while the in-state accpetance rate is approximately 45% according to the website.
As an out of state student, I encourage you to apply if you are interested! When I applied to William & Mary, I was totally uncertain if I was going to get in, but the decision was totally worth it. Many of my closest friends here are from New Jersey and it is the second most popular state of origin aside from Virginia.
Thank you for bringing this back up! I would be happy to answer more questions for anyone that has any. I know this is also the time people are deciding between schools so I want to be as helpful as possible.
Hi ! I am a high school junior who just visited the William and Mary campus as completely loved it! I don’t know if you are still taking questions but…
- Do you like the cafeteria food at William and Mary?
- Did you receive lots of help with choosing your major? (I liked William and Mary b/c I am unsure about my major and was told on the tour that each student had a major adviser)
- What do you do for fun in Williamsburg?
- What is your least favorite thing about William and Mary? ( not trying to be negative but want to get an idea of some of the cons of this school)
- What kind of students/people do you think should not consider William and Mary?
- What kind of benefits to Monroe Scholars get ?
Thank you in advance !
@shawnspencer Ah, thanks so much! You have really eased my nerves!
Yeah of course! I would be more than happy to answer your questions @iwanttogetintocollege.
I knew this question was coming haha. Food is decent but nothing spectacular. It can honestly be a hit or miss depending on the day, I hope for more hits than misses. Thankfully there are three different dining halls and several other dining locations that take swipes, so you do have options.
Williamsburg has the Busch Gardens amusement park, Colonial Williamsburg, several beaches, restaurants, movie theaters, and attractions in the local area. During the winter months, there is an ice rink that comes out close to campus, and there are holiday lights, fireworks, and local festivities. There are also things like laser tag arenas, escape rooms, and go kart rinks within five minutes from campus. During the warmer months, ghost tours, outdoor movies, farmer’s markets, art festivals, parades, and festivals can be found right across the street.
For most students however they spend the majority of their time on campus. There is usually so many activities going on within the campus itself that students don’t frequently venture out as much. This means everything from outdoor canoeing, to dodgeball tournaments, to comedy shows, to concerts, to NERF gun wars, to parties, and everything in between. William & Mary has a strong campus community, so there’s always some organization hosting an event. Some of my best times have been going on spontaneous adventures or trying something completely new.
Yes every student gets a faculty advisor on campus. They can be as helpful as you want them to be. For instance I found my advisor to be extremely helpful in charting out my future college trajectory, but I also knew other students who only wanted to meet for five minutes. I would say what is probably more helpful is taking classes, talking to students, and figuring out what you want out of your education. Heck you can even design your own major here. Most professors are super open and accessible, so that the person that is the most helpful to you may not end up being the person that is your major advisor.
There are many different type of students that are here at William & Mary. I would say that the only type of students that should not come here are students that do not want to be challenged or pushed outside their comfort zone. William & Mary wants students to come out taking courses that are interdisciplinary in nature and will often come into contact with ideas that contrast with previous beliefs. Also I guess students that are dead set on going to college in an extremely urban environment or are focused on solely becoming number one in their class because W&M has many talented students that you will likely not be the smartest person in your class.
My least favorite thing about campus would probably be how easily it can be absorbed into campus itself. This might be a personal thing, but I have found that sometimes it is easy to really be absorbed in your classes, extracurricular involvements, or your own philosophical ponderings that it is sometimes hard to remember the world outside of Williamsburg. William & Mary is such a unique community, but I think it is important to stay connected with the rest of the world as it helps answer big questions about life or yourself that may not be found in a college campus.
Monroe Scholars receive $3,000 towards a research project of their choice, priority registration during their first semester, get access to a special speaker series dedicated to the program, and the ability to live in Monroe Hall which is arguably one of the better freshman dorms on campus. It is one of the few dorms that have a foosball table, ping pong table, AND an air hockey table. And you can say you a Monroe Scholar at where Monroe went to school.
Hope that helped! Let me know if you have any more questions.
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Thanks for opening this thread; it’s been very useful! If anyone could answer any of my questions I would really appreciate it.
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Are there many international students at W&M? Considering how 2/3 of students are from Virginia, would I feel a little left out?
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Where does W&M stand politically? Are students LGBT+ friendly?
3)Would you consider W&M to be rural? How easy is it to get to Williamsburg?
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What would you say is W&M’s standout quality? If you had to sell the school to me in 30 seconds how would you do it?
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Do you know anything about the strength of the English or Creative Writing departments? What about journalism opportunities on campus?
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Is it true OOS admission is more competitive for females?
Hey @TheGr8Gatsby ! It’s been a while since I have checked College Confidential, so apologies for the late response! Nevertheless I am more than happy to answer your questions and anyone else that happens to find this thread.
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There are a good number of international students at William & Mary. According to the William & Mary website, there are approximately 1,000 international students that attend, although probably only half of them are undergrads. Many of them hail from East Asian countries, although I have known international students from places like Canada, India, the UK, and Australia. You might notice a couple of differences, but I don’t think you would feel left out. William & Mary is a very welcoming place and I came from far away out of state as well, and I found it to be incredibly warm and accepting.
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William & Mary is more middle of the road when compared to most colleges, but it definitely leans liberal. It was largely because of the students that Williamsburg turned blue the past election. However it is generally respectful of people from different backgrounds. Although I cannot speak from experience, William & Mary tends to be LGBT+ friendly. William & Mary has recently adopted gender neutral housing and several of the prominent activist leaders, leadership at the center of the student diversity, and the most recent winter commencement speaker were from LGBT+ community. Additionally campus-wide Pride is one of the most popular and well attended events of the year from students of all different backgrounds. I know a couple of LGBT+ international students that weren’t comfortable coming out in their home countries but have done so since coming to campus.
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I wouldn’t call William & Mary rural, although Williamsburg likes to call itself a city, it’s probably more like a small town. It is relatively accessible with the bus and train stations a five minute walk from campus. There are also shuttles to the nearest airport, but students are always carpooling and some have even started their own ride-sharing app.
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The quality of people that go here. It is really hard to describe, but I have met some of the best people at William & Mary. They are the people that will stay up late for the 2 AM conversations, the compassionate people that want to change the world in some way, and they are the people that are there to support you when you fall down. It’s a caring community, which is probably symbolized by the fact that you get high-fived by all the other students the first day of classes. It’s definitely not perfect, but as I leave this place in a couple of months, I am definitely grateful for the abundance of high quality people that I have met here.
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I don’t know as much about the English and Creative Writing programs, but my sense is that they are both pretty strong. I even have had some of my friends do research in the English department even as a freshman, which was pretty awesome. As for the creative writing department, those classes are extremely popular that they are always some of the first to run out of spots. It doesn’t have a full fledged major program, only a minor at the moment, but my friends who have taken it have had positive experiences.
There are two major campus news publications the Flat Hat newspaper, the DoG street Journal Magazine. The Flat Hat is the more comprehensive of the two, is very well structured, and even has its own internship process. There are also opportunities to write for the William & Mary website and other publications. William & Mary does not have an academic journalism program, but it does have a course called the Sharp Seminar. You can apply to it and I am currently in it, but basically it is a course where you work with journalists from the Pulitzer Center to write about under-reported topics, and you get a grant to travel anywhere in the world to do it. Also William & Mary has its own version of Humans of New York called Humans of William & Mary, which is pretty cool, check it out!
- Generally William & Mary students lean female because more female students end up applying, making the acceptance rate look smaller. Being out of state is definitely more competitive because of the percentage of students that are required to be in-state. Does that make being an out of state female more competitive? I guess so, although it is definitely not the first thing they consider. If you are thinking about applying, I encourage you to just go for it cause college applications can be hard to predict either way.
I hope this was helpful! Hope you are enjoying the holidays, and don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any more questions or wanna chat.
@shawnspencer Thanks! That was really, really helpful. 
@shawnspencer Does William & Mary feel like a Virginia school or does one get a sense of a national population?
I would love to know the answer to @david5454’s question. Also, how Greek does W&M feel? To me, so much of what I’ve read about W&M makes it sound like an LAC with lots of options for socializing without being Greek. Yet, I believe the percentage of Greek students is fairly high. I’d like to hear your thoughts on that.
William and Mary is a little of both in terms of feeling like a VA or national school. OOS students definitely have a strong presence on campus.
Greek life is a significant part of student life at William and Mary but not at all a dominant one like at some schools, Wake Forest for example. Fraternities and sororities tend to be a little more chill than at other southern schools. Greek life is big enough for those who want it, but many (most) students are able to have a fun experience without participating in Greek life.
That’s a great question! For the most part William & Mary is like a medium sized liberal arts college. You will find students from all across the country, but the vast majority of students hail from Virginia. My freshman dorm had people from places like Virginia, New York, Hawaii, California, Florida, and countries like Sierra Leone and China if that is of any frame of reference. In that sense it is a little bit of both. I always love meeting and learning from people who grew up in different places, but it doesn’t necessarily play a big part in day to day life.
William & Mary was where the first greek organization Phi Beta Kappa, which is now a nationally recognized honor society, was founded so it is probably not likely to go away anytime soon. Approximately one-third of students are involved in a greek organization. That said William & Mary’s greek life is relatively more relaxed and chill when compared to other schools. Students who are involved in those organizations tend to be still very active in other things on campus and many friends have commented that it probably wouldn’t be something that they would do at another university, but have decided to join it here. There isn’t this huge divide between students here because most people still maintain strong friendships outside of their organizations. It’s like you said, there are many other different avenues to explore and socialize without being greek, but the option is there in case you choose to partake.
Does W&M really not have any photography classes? I looked all around and all I could find were some articles from a few years ago saying they were adding photography and had built a darkroom. I haven’t seen anything recent and I didn’t find any classes on the website but thought maybe I was missing something?
@momtogkc We do! The classes we have and information about them can be found here (here’s a link to this semester’s art classes, which include photography): https://courselist.wm.edu/courselist/courseinfo/searchresults?term_code=201820&term_subj=ART&attr=0&attr2=0&levl=0&status=0&ptrm=0&search=Search
@shawnspencer sorry for hijacking your thread :,)
@Chips99 Thank you - don’t know how I missed that! I’m sure ti wouldn’t have been a deal breaker but D is very interested in photography right now.
How does housing work at W&M after freshman year? I read that 73% of students are on campus. All of the other schools we are looking at for S19 guarantee housing for four years and we certainly like that but we understand not all schools can accommodate all students. We are not considering any school where he would be forced to live off campus before senior year.
@homerdog, the link below gives info on getting waitlisted or “bumped” as students call it. Students are guaranteed housing freshmen and senior years. Beyond that, the vast majority of students will be able to live on campus if they want. You make a deposit for the following year. Some students may be waitlisted or bumped and may not be able to go through the room selection process unless reinstated before selection. The greatest challenge is that your roommate might go through without you. However, you can see that roommates, where one is bumped, can choose a designated “overcrowd” room, and a bumped student can take the overcrowd spot–i.e. be the third person in a designated overcrowd double. Even if a student remains bumped after selection, they most often get a spot on campus over the summer as attendance and housing plans change.
However, note that the school anticipates no waitlist at all for the coming year. So that none of this will be an issue for any students next year. They are effectively guaranteed a spot on campus.
This might change some year to year–especially if a dorm goes offline for remodeling. But it is highly unlikely that your student would not get a spot on campus, and it appears right now, that they would be highly unlikely to have to manage a “bumped” situation. And you can only be bumped once, and you cannot be bumped senior year.
So you can take it as a three-year guarantee and a near guarantee for four years, with some very small chance of having to work around a bump once, well less than 10% I’d estimate, and an extremely small chance of just not having any campus option once, given where enrollment and housing is today.
https://www.wm.edu/offices/residencelife/rsp/undergraduate/waitlist/index.php
Are freshmen required to live in dorms?
Yes, freshmen are generally required to live in campus housing except maybe some local commuting students and/or those with special circumstances. Students do not have to live on campus after freshman year, though a majority do. Housing is not guaranteed after freshman year, though, in the end, only an extremely small % who desire on-campus housing are not able to secure a place. Housing has announced it anticipates being able to accommodate all students next year without creating any type of waitlist.
Do W&M students go to Busch Gardens during the school year? Do W&M students get discount tickets or buy season passes? We are thinking about going to Busch Gardens when we visit for admitted student day and I am wondering if I should just by my WM2022 student a season pass.