Looking Towards the Future

After months of incessant news and media coverage, the day is finally here. Election Day. No matter what political affiliation you happen to have, or which candidate you side with, today we come together as a nation to look towards our future and elect the individual we feel can best lead our country.

While no formal elections are taking place here in the Admission Office, we are also looking towards the future. Early Decision applications have been submitted, which means we have officially begun our application review process. This is one of the most exciting parts of our job as admission counselors – learning more about our many impressive applicants, and building future William & Mary classes one student, athlete, performer, scientist, writer, historian, engineer, and/or innovator at a time.

So what does this process look like? First, let’s set the stage.

Over the past several months, you have researched different colleges, met with your school counselor to discuss these colleges, talked about these colleges with family and friends, visited a number of these colleges in person, and reflected on which college(s) you would like to apply to. In other words, you and your family have invested a LOT of time and energy into this long and exciting college search process.

Those of us here in the Admission Office do not take this for granted. To all of you who have either applied Early Decision to W&M, or are planning to apply Regular Decision, we are honored that you think highly enough of W&M that you are willing to share your story with us. Because of this, we review every application that we receive thoroughly, thoughtfully, and with care.

Each application that comes through our office is read at least twice, from cover to cover, by two different members of our team (one of these reads will be done by your regional dean). During each of these reads, all application components will be taken into consideration (transcript, standardized test scores, extracurricular involvements, essay(s), letter(s) of recommendation, any other optional components submitted), as will all contextual information provided to us in the application. We very much embrace the holistic approach to application review, and strive to get to know each of our individual applicants. We genuinely want to know all that you might contribute as a member of the William & Mary community.

After being read twice, many applications will end up being presented during our Early Decision Committee, during which all of our admission deans gather to discuss the merits of our remaining applicants. These committee meetings will commence later this month – future blog posts will highlight what takes place behind these closed doors.

Decisions made as a result of this thorough review process are neither right nor wrong. They are simply the best decisions we can make based on both this year’s applicant pool and what we know about William & Mary. We hope that you can tell that all of these decisions are carefully made.

Thank you all for the time and effort you put into your applications. Your talents, life experiences, and personalities make our jobs incredibly rewarding. We’ll be in touch again soon once our Early Decision Committee meetings commence.

Brad Harlan
Assistant Dean of Admission