freaking out about grades good enough for williams

bex56
Wed, 19 Jan 2005 23:57:59 +0000

I know that this is a stressful time for everyone waiting to hear from college-- I was there myself a few years back. I’ll just share my own experience, to prove that a few B+'s will not kill you (or earn you a rejection from Williams, for that matter). I had plenty of B+'s on my transcript, along with my fair share of B’s and at least one or two C+ that I can think of. I’m not from an underrepresented group, either ethnically or geographically. I am also not a recruited athlete. I just had other things going for me. I can’t tell you what got me in, but it must have been some of these: my very competitive high school, high board scores, my dedication to certain activities/jobs that I think I wrote about fairly eloquently in my essay. My experience is not unique, either. The good people in the admissions office think long and hard about these decisions, and I’m sure you gave them plenty to think about.

These things are entirely impossible to predict, and at a certain point (like, say, after you sent your applications out) things are out of your hands. If you go to Williams, you’re going to have to get used to not getting straight A’s, so you might as well start now.