Selling self short? 1570 SAT, 4.0 UW, William and Mary ED1 [NoVa resident, bio, biochem or chem research]

College Search & Lists
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Note: Hope I’m doing this right. New to this.

College apps season is rolling in (hooray) and I thought I’d throw myself in the pot here to see if anyone has some insight. I’ve had the College of William and Mary as my top choice and Early Decision 1 application for a while now, but the only thing that gives me pause is that I could potentially “aim higher” for more prestigious/selective options. I’ve been known to be stubborn/set in my ways, and want to make sure my tendency to dwell on familiarity isn’t coloring my approach to applications.

About me: I’m a high school senior (18F) with the aforementioned stats.

  • I am from NoVa (in state) and go to a highly prestigious magnet school with notable grade deflation compared to others in the region. I am not in my school’s top 10%.
  • I am not pre-med, but almost certainly in the bio/biochem/chem research field going forward.
  • I have created and run a graduate level research project around the synthesis of a biochemical and have significant lab background. I love research.
  • I am neurodivergent and consider myself very “quirky”. I have struggled with mental health and motivation in the past.
  • I am from a rural area and dislike cities & large schools.
  • I have received 5s on all of my 8+ AP classes.
  • My most recent SAT score is a 1570.
  • Moderately solid EC involvement imo, can give more details if needed

William and Mary was the first college I visited back in freshman year, and it felt like a solid fit. I’ve met several professors and visited two or three times since then. That said, I’ve spent most of my life being the “smart kid” and, whether related or not, can’t quite stomach the 30+% acceptance rate at W&M being so much higher than schools I’ve considered like JHU, ivies, etc. I don’t want to spend 4 more years in the environment of a cutthroat STEM school given my magnet experiences in HS, but I also tend to do poorly surrounded by people who don’t share my curiosity and passion for knowledge. Is William and Mary a fit for me and worth tying myself to ED, or are there aspects that might warrant holding off or trying something else first?

TL;DR - Don’t know whether I should spend my ED on W&M or somewhere else due to high stats and my science/research focus.

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Don’t be fooled by William & Mary’s higher acceptance rate. It’s a bargain for what it offers! Check out this post by @LionsTigersAndBears which notes that William & Mary is rated 5 pens by Fiske (the highest academic rating), while having a significantly higher acceptance rate than all the others in that category.

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Note that students at W&M appreciate the quality of their science lab facilities:

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If YOU love William and Mary, that’s all that matters. I’ll :crossed_fingers:t2:that you receive an ED acceptance!!

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What is your unweighted gpa ?

Give 4 for an A, 3 for a B, 2 for a C. I’ll assume it’s high.

Best of luck to you.

Btw - colleges you feel connected to are right for you, regardless of acceptance rate.

Many choose safeties over reaches. Both mine did.
You will be somewhere four years, day after day. An acceptance rate doesn’t impact your daily happiness.

Good luck to you - beautiful campus, great school.

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Did the OP change the title of this thread? It says the unweighted is 4.0.

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I don’t think you need to worry about this at all. I know quite a few students at W&M, and they are all curious, engaged, and motivated. It seems very much a “fit” school, and everything you’ve described about yourself suggests W&M would be a great fit.

Size and location align with your preferences. You’re in-state so the price is right—a real bargain for such a great school. And I think you have great odds for ED, so you could be one-and-done and able to exhale in December. Seems like a great match.

Best of luck to you!

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No idea. I just saw 4.45 weighted. But that’s good.

I’d imagine they have good odds with W&M.

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You are not selling yourself short.

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Oh, heck yeah. I’m stoked you wrote your post! Welcome to CC!

Just to reiterate what others have written, I think ED — as a general rule — should be used for the school that you absolutely want to go to, forsaking all others. Using ED as a way to get into a school that you aren’t as interested in but that has a smaller number next to it in USNWR is, I think, a trap. I understand the tension, though!

Setting prestige aside for a second, are there any other schools that have felt like an even better fit for you than W&M? Any schools where you’ve connected with professors the way you have at W&M?

If you want to hold on to options, you have an excellent record, and I would be rather surprised if you didn’t get in to W&M during the RD round. So I would think that if there are other schools that have spoken to you where you want to shoot your shot with an REA or SCEA application, you could then submit your W&M application in the regular cycle and it would go well for you. And you wouldn’t have a nagging question of “agh, maybe I should have played this differently.” The downside: significantly more stress! Fuss and bother and more applications! (Note: With as much as W&M has resonated with you, I would not close the door to it by ED-ing anywhere else.)

As @thumper1 and @Collegequestions5 pointed out, how great would it be to send in your application to W&M and be done early? To echo them, W&M feels like a really great fit for you. And, as @Bill_Marsh said, you’re not selling yourself short. It’s an amazing place. Per my post from a few months back that @tamagotchi cited, in my opinion W&M is the ne plus ultra of admit rate arbitrage. The ultimate “work hard / play nice” school. Warm academia, through and through. You’ll absolutely love it if you go.

However your journey goes, please don’t hesitate to post more here with your thoughts / questions. Folks here would love to help you out.

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You have done very well in high school. Congratulations!

What this earns you is mostly two things. One is that you are likely to be very well prepared to start university. The other is that you are likely to have the opportunity to attend a university or college that you want to attend. Specifically, you should be looking for a school that is a good fit for you.

You do not need to attend the most “prestigious” or highest ranked university that you can get accepted to. “Prestige” is mostly to impress high school seniors. Looking for prestige is a recipe that can sometimes lead to a bad result. The rest of us are much better off if we attend a university where we will be happy.

And a highly ranked school can in some cases be stressful, and can in some cases be cutthroat.

And reading your post, it sounds like William and Mary is a good fit for you. Is it the highest ranked school that you can get accepted to? I do not know. I do not care. I would suggest that you should not care either. Is it a very good university? Yes, definitely. Will you get the opportunity to do some research while you are there? I expect that the answer will be a very big YES. Can you get a great undergraduate education there? Definitely YES.

Given your research focus and high stats, I am going to guess that you might eventually end up in some form of graduate program. I know multiple people who have had some sort of biomedical related graduate education (master’s degrees, PhD, DVM, MD, …). They all report that the other students in their graduate programs come from a huge range of undergraduate universities. W&M can prepare you very well for very good graduate programs, as could any of a wide range of other universities.

By the way, I have a daughter who while older than you, might possibly have some common traits, interests and abilities. She also was a very strong student in high school, and had a strong SAT score (although not quite as high as yours). She also was interested in a moderate sized school (and specifically not a large school – UVA for example would have been larger than she was interested in). She also was interested in research. She also did not want a cutthroat environment. She did not attend the highest ranked university that she could have gotten into. Instead she went to a school that was a great fit for her. This has worked out very well. She did very well in classes, got to know her professors, got involved in biomedical research, and graduated with a high GPA, great research experience, and the ability to get strong references from professors who she had worked with and who know her well. Right now she is getting a PhD at a very good university and seems to like it a lot. The other students in her PhD program come from all over the place, including schools ranked higher and schools ranked lower and schools ranked about the same compared to either W&M or the university that she attended. What these diverse students have in common is an interest in research and a history of doing very well at whatever university or college they attended.

You will find other very smart students at W&M. You will not be alone. Actually university in general is likely to give you the opportunity to meet more students who are “like you” in ways that matter, such as being intelligent and taking their education seriously and being interested in biomedical or biochemical research. They might be from large cities. They might look different from you. They might be from other parts of the world. They might have tattoos or piercings. This does not matter. An interest in the same things such as research and education does matter, and is something that you will find among students at any one of several hundred very good colleges and universities throughout the US.

Another issue: You are in-state for W&M, and they do offer some merit based aid. It seems likely to be relatively affordable. You have interests that to me seem to say “graduate school”, of some form or another. Saving some college money for graduate school can sometimes be helpful in the long run.

From what you have said it seems to me that W&M is likely to be a very good fit for you. To me this suggests that there are two reasonable choices at this point. One is to apply ED to W&M, the other is not to apply ED anywhere. Either way you should be looking to attend a school that is a good fit for you.

Rankings are to sell magazines. A good fit is more likely to make students happy and successful.

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I was the “smart kid” back in the 80s. Applied to WM because my parents said it was a beautiful campus. Best four years I could have asked for. My daughter graduated a few years ago, my son is there now. I think they would say the same.

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The only negative is the acceptance rate ?

“aforementioned” ?

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Like a previous poster, I was in a similar position to you a million years ago. I was the smart kid in my NoVa HS, I had a near perfect SAT score and a perfect GPA. Lots of good extra curriculars and honors. I applied to W&M because it was in state. I also applied to Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, Brown, Amherst and Williams. I got into five out of six of those as well. And I picked W&M. At the time the choice was based on the money - I had won some scholarships that would only come with going to a school in the state of Va, and on top of the in state tuition, I couldn’t justify the cost differential. I sort of thought it would be easy ish. It wasn’t. I started in a 300 level French class and got a C+. I was shocked. My first year bio and chem classes required real work. But perhaps the biggest shocker of all, I wasn’t the smartest, or even close to the smartest, in the room. Yes, I was a Monroe scholar and lived in the Monroe scholar dorm, so most of my immediate peers were also honors students, but it was a huge shock to my system to have to rejigger the way I had always identified myself by being the smartest or most academically capable around.

All of this was, of course, a very long time ago and much of it isn’t relevant. I tell you all this for two reasons: (1) don’t be surprised if W&M attracts a lot of very smart students and applicants, you will not be alone with kids who like thinking and working and doing hard academic things and (2) try to cut yourself some slack if it doesn’t always go as smoothly as you hope it will. Schools with admit rates that are higher can still be very challenging and you should be ready for that.

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I’m just going to give my 2 cents as the parent of a current senior STEM major at William and Mary.We are out of state and my son applied early decision. He knew the second he stepped on campus that it was the right place for him. I honestly didn’t really get it, but he just told me that it “felt like home”. In hindsight, even he agrees that he probably didn’t “need” to apply ED. The one real benefit for him was being done with the whole college admissions thing early in December. He was able to relax and enjoy the rest of his senior year.

My son was near the top of his class at a selective private school,high test scores,5s on 11 ap exams, aced multi variable calculus and linear algebra and had good extracurriculars etc etc. He turned down free tuition at our excellent state schools ( the acceptances to both UGA honors and Georgia Tech came in before he heard from William and Mary). He got quite a bit of push back from family members and friends who had no familiarity with William and Mary. My husband questioned whether he should have been aiming higher. My father in law came around when his Princeton educated colleague confided that William and Mary was the only college that rejected him. Lol

Fast forward a few years, we all agree that William and Mary was the best decision my son could have made. He is surrounded by incredibly smart, studious and intellectually engaged students. I have been so impressed by all of his friends - they are very accomplished both in and out of the classroom and are just genuinely good humans. Almost all are involved in on campus research which is highly emphasized at William and Mary. You can dive right in from day one. The profs love to get freshman involved right away knowing they will have you for four years. You also don’t have to compete for lab positions with grad students and you will be doing substantive research from the get go. You might also be interested in the IGEM team. They have been the only US team in the top ten globally for several years and have finished ahead of teams from some of those more prestigious universities.

As @OctoberKate described, my son quickly discovered he was no longer the smartest guy in the room. He has had to work hard. There are very few easy A’s. He doesn’t have a 4.0 - which is still exceedingly rare especially in STEM. While William and Mary is rigorous, it is also a very collaborative environment and the professors are accessible and want the students to succeed.

The other thing I would mention is that the support for neurodiverse students is very good. William and Mary was one of the first universities to have a neurodiversity initiative and continues to be a leader in that area. You will have the option of a freshman advisor with expertise in neurodiversity and there are student run groups as well as group counseling run by the wellness center.

So- no you would not be selling yourself short in any way by attending William and Mary. As others have said you DO NOT have to apply early decision to William and Mary or anywhere else. It’s not a game and it’s not about what bumper sticker your parents get to put on their car. I would be shocked if you were not accepted in the regular round. They also have an ED2 option if you decide to apply ED1 or SCEA to a school that you would prefer to attend.

From what you described, William and Mary could be a great fit. I think your concern about the “high acceptance rate” is misplaced for a few reasons. William and Mary is very self selecting in nature. Quite simply it and Williamsburg itself don’t appeal to some people. Not everyone wants to be in a tourist town where everything shuts down by 10pm. Not everyone wants a rigorous liberal arts education. Not everyone wants to go to such a nerdy school etc. If you look at the academic chops of William and Mary students, you will find that there isn’t as big of a gap between those students at elite schools and those at William and Mary as you might think.

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Thank you for such a substantive description of life at W&M. And I second your recommendation as this college as an excellent choice.

Just one small nit pick and a question. Why would he not be competing with grad students for research opportunities? William & Mary is an R1 research university. There are almost 3000 grad students on campus and more than a dozen departments offering doctorates. Maybe your son’s major is in a department that doesn’t offer doctoral study? If so, this applicant may find the same positive experience in research labs because W&M does not offer a doctorate in either Biology, Chemistry, or Biochem although they do offer master’s level graduate programs in Biology and Chemistry.

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My son is a physics major and I’m not sure of the total number of grad students in his department. The graduate programs in the sciences are relatively small and most of the labs need more manpower than just grad students can provide. The bulk of those 3000 graduate students are enrolled in larger programs such as the law school, school of education and MBA programs. The lab my son works in has three PhD students and 8 or 9 undergraduate researchers. Undergrad research is a cornerstone of the STEM programs at William and Mary which culminates in a year long capstone or honors project senior year They simply do not hire profs who are unwilling to have undergrads working in their labs. Many of the projects are interdisciplinary - like the IGEM team I referenced above has students from bio, chemistry, comp sci., physics and whatnot. It is very common for students to start research freshman year. The departments post projects that are looking for students and I’ve never heard of a student being turned away. The profs are generally willing to take all the help they can get.

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Thank you for elaborating.

Just to satisfy inquiring minds. W&M is in the process of launching a new PhD program in Physics. They have not had one during your son’s time there.

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I can’t speak to the different departments, or where it might be easier / harder to get a research gig, but can say that both of my twins, as freshmen, are doing research this fall, with one in the sciences and one in the humanities. The first is working in a bio lab with a professor she met when touring the school as a junior. The other is working with an art professor on a project investigating 3D printing ceramics (found via a poster hung up on campus looking for undergrads). (Separately, the humanities one also ended up landing an internship off-campus with the NAACP, analyzing educational outcomes in different local school districts.)

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We are getting a little off topic. The physics PhD is not a new program. I am not sure how long it has existed, but one of my son’s profs earned her PhD in physics from William and Mary in 2008. I promise you my son is not imagining the PhD students that he has been working with for last 3 years. Here is a departmental list of physics PhD dissertations for the last 6 years.

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