Overheard in Committee: Early Decision Edition Part 2

We Admit It! Thanksgiving break was fantastic. What’s not to like? Family. Friends. Food. It’s one of the best holidays of the year, and those of us here in the admission office used the weekend to decompress and relax. Now back in Williamsburg, we have resumed our Early Decision Committee discussions, building the class of 2021 one student at a time.

Last week, our Overheard in Committee post focused on the importance of the college essay. Today’s post, brought to you by Senior Assistant Dean Whitney Pitschke, focuses on letters of recommendation.

We love Early Decision Committee! Since late August, all of the deans have been traveling all over the country (and for some of us, the world) to attend college fairs, visit high schools, and host receptions for prospective students. Now we are all reunited on campus to begin the process of selecting the first members of the class of 2021. It is truly one of the most wonderful times of the year! One of the most fun parts of the application review is getting to know you as an applicant and, as you have read on the blog before, our review process is completely holistic and we take all aspects of your application into consideration, including your personal qualities.

Overheard in Committee this week: “The high school really loves this student”.

How do we know that your high school really loves you? We know by the letters of recommendation that we receive from your teachers and your school counselors. In this student’s case, the high school counselor and a teacher wrote glowing letters of recommendation that showed their full support of the student as well as some fun anecdotes.

A letter of recommendation that is truly well done and helpful for us in the admissions committee elaborates on both your personal and academic qualities and tells us things about you that we wouldn’t otherwise be able to glean from your application. We can obviously see from your transcript whether or not you have challenged yourself and how well you are doing in your classes, but hearing from your teachers about the type of student you are in class is incredibly helpful. For example, if you have straight As in your classes, we can see that you are a strong, intelligent student and that you work very hard, but hearing from your teachers that you are a student who loves learning just for the sake of learning or that you are a student who makes very thoughtful contributions to class is information that is invaluable to us as we review your application.

We are trying to build a class of students who are passionate, excited to learn, and are going to bring their unique gifts to the William & Mary community so hearing from the people who work with you the closest is a great way to get a glimpse of the type of student you will be on our campus. For this reason, it is important to be strategic about who you ask to write you letters of recommendation. Since we try to use the letters of recommendation as a way to get to know you as an applicant better, it is a good idea to make sure that the person writing your letter of recommendation actually knows you well and can speak to your academic and personal qualities that will help enhance your application.

Recommendation letters are just one of the many ways that we get to know you in the application review process and we really love hearing about what the people who know you the best have to say about you!

We hope you’ve enjoyed this year’s version of Overheard in Early Decision Committee. We have very much enjoyed reading and discussing your impressive applications. Be on the lookout for a “Decisions, Decisions” blog post in the near future. As of today, we are planning to send decision emails out by this time next week.

Whitney Pitschke
Senior Assistant Dean of Admission

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