Williams or Amherst Admission - Realistic Chances

behrumt
Tue, 01 Feb 2011 17:02:28 +0000

Your son certainly has quite a bit going for him. From what I have been told from admissions, the strength of curriculum is the most important consideration. If he took 2 APs and there were 3 or 4 offered, that is great. If there are numerous students taking 4 each junior and senior year, then 2 will not look great, especially if these other students at his school get As. A couple of Bs in and of themselves will not keep an applicant out, but it is relative. I am not sure I agree with the comment about Williams liking athletes. It is a small school with quite a few varsity teams, so the athletic recruits (somewhere around 65?) do get preferential treatment (I am certain if your son were a highly recruited athlete he would have been admitted ED with those stats) but for the non-recruited athlete spots, i.e. the other almost 500, athletic love is not a requirement. In fact it might be a negative. Williams I know tries to fill a balanced class, so once the teams are filled I think a dancer or singer or whatever else would be preferred to a non-varsity athlete. Nobody can tell you how good of a chance he has, but I know kids at Williams who were told not to even bother applying by their counselors. However, it is a numbers game, and there are so few spots, and there are some allocated for legacies, locals, first generation to college, etc so it takes some luck and a very solid application to get one of those. Any chance he would be in some kind of special category for his music? I don’t have any experience in that are. Good luck