If A Picture Is Worth 1,000 Words, Is A Video Worth More?

Admit It! You’ve thought to yourself on more than one occasion that if the admission committees at the schools to which you are applying could just meet you, they would have no choice but to admit you.  In lieu of a face-to-face meeting, many of today’s applicants are opting for virtual meetings via submitted videos.

As 2011 began and the submission of college applications for the college graduating class of 2015 ended, The Washington Post featured a story and a blog on college application video essays.  A number of years ago, William & Mary’s Admission Committee even created an award-winning application prompt that likely inspired some students to respond in motion picture.  While the traditional written essay is still very much in vogue, especially among highly-selective colleges and universities, each year more and more students are supplementing their college applications with some sort of video.  The debate about these videos among those in higher education is to what extent they make the college application process more public and if that is something about which we should worry.

William & Mary’s optional submission prompt was meant to a) mostly to demystify our admission process and b) to encourage our applicants to think outside the box, in other words to be themselves and express themselves in whatever way they saw fit.  If it encouraged people to respond with a moving picture of their own, that was fine.  W&M has not yet taken the step of formally encouraging students to submit videos as part of the application process.  Some colleges are moving that way as it provides them with the ability to put a name with a face and to virtually meet the student; something all admission offices wish they could do for every applicant.  But if these videos are posted publicly (say on YouTube for example) do they erase the confidentiality traditionally associated with college applications?  An application has traditionally been something shared only with a few select people on a college campus.  Public videos can be viewed by everyone from faculty, to current students, to alumni.  The second guessing of decisions and weighing in on applicants that come with the ability to view parts of a student’s application makes W&M’s Dean of Admission, Henry Broaddus, a bit nervous.  He also wishes to underscore that a college application is not as much about style as it is about substance as he noted on NPR’s All Things Considered.  That being said, W&M will gladly view any video submissions we receive and does not in any way penalize students for posting the videos to public forums.  Admit It! though, it’s an interesting debate.

What are your thoughts on this ever-increasing trend in college admission?

Wendy Livingston ’03, M.Ed. ’09
Senior Assistant Dean of Admission