My daughter did attend the Haverford one and really enjoyed it. In fact, she’s considering applying to Haverford ED now! That’s one more reason for visiting Williams and Amherst in a few weeks, so she can compare and see which she likes the best.
As I mentioned in the OP, she did apply to both the Williams and Amherst diversity fly-in programs but didn’t get in either. From what I’ve gather, it appears that there are different tiers of response, though:
- Acceptance (90% chance of getting in?)
- Rejected, but offered a chance to speak with an AO and the application fee is waived (according to Williams, these people have 2x the acceptance rate compared to the average)
- Rejected, but application fee is waived
- Rejected
My daughter got accepted to 2 programs (Haverford and Oberlin), but got the 2nd best at Williams and Middlebury. She got the 3rd best response from Amherst. The rest were straight out rejections, though Vassar told her she was on the waitlist (and later rejected her) and Grinnell arranged for her to speak with a current student. Grinnell also doesn’t have an application fee to waive, so I’m not sure if they would have waived it. Bowdoin said that she simply didn’t qualify for the program because it was for students who hadn’t visited the school in the past and couldn’t afford to visit. (We visited in February, and she acknowledged in her application that she has the financial means to send her.) I suspect she may have been rejected off the bat from other diversity programs for those reasons as well as the fact that her diversity comes from being half-Japanese, which is not an URM.
Williams’s admit rate last year was 12.17%. If we take them at their word that by conducting the phone call with the AO my daughter doubled her chances, that puts her at 24%. It’s hard to say what, if any, boost she would get from applying ED, but I have to assume it’s not nothing. Maybe a few percentage points?