Overheard in Committee — More Good Conversations
Admit It! These blogs are kind of addictive (both for the readers and the author). Committee is in many ways similar. It allows us to have really great conversations about students, about our field, about what it is that we do and why we do it. We appreciate all of the back and forth that has taken place throughout this blog series, and we look forward to continued conversation. And, for those of you interested in our sugar intake, we’ve finished off a bag of Wheat Thins, a bag of dried fruit mix, a good portion of a five-pound bag of trail mix, several additional single servings of 100-calorie snack packs/Pringles/peanuts, one entire box of Cheeze-Its, most of the M&Ms and two two-tiered trays of cupcakes.
Overheard in Committee yesterday: This student is entirely out of context.
Out of context, or OOC for short, is a term we use when a student has changed high schools either multiple times, or towards the end of high school. Oftentimes, this can wreak havoc on a student’s course selection, GPA/class rank and extracurricular involvements. We tend to see students who are “OOC” more often than you might think given we are in Virginia which is home to a lot of military and diplomatic families.
Students who are out of context can often have lower GPAs and class ranks than they deserve because their new high school gives them a GPA and rank as if they had been at that high school all four years even though they were at other high schools with different teachers, different classes, different weighting systems and different grading scales. They can also have what appears to be a less demanding curriculum. This often happens if students move from one state to another as different states have different graduation requirements. Those students are then required to take freshmen-level courses during their senior year in order to graduate, which prohibits them from taking some of the meatier senior-level courses. Or maybe they were taking Russian at their first high school and moved to a school that didn’t offer Russian so they have to start over with a new foreign language track. Finally, these students who attend multiple high schools often have quite the disruption in their extracurricular activities. Sometimes as transfers they’re not eligible to play their sport for a year. Or a club they were super involved in at a previous high school isn’t offered at their new high school. And, as a new student, they are often not elected to leadership positions because other students are more ingrained in existing organizations.
So when reviewing these OOC students we try to put them in the context of their original high school (especially if they moved just for senior year) and try to gauge whether we would have taken them had they remained at that high school for the senior year. We also try to get a sense of the extent of the disruption the moved caused to their academic progress from both the student and counselor. We also get super impressed when these students say transfer from a non-IB school to an IB-school and jump right into the diploma program if that’s allowed. Or we get really excited when they are in fact elected captain or president of an organization.
We share this particular Committee discussion to try to illustrate the holistic and thorough nature of our process. We really do try to put every applicant in the appropriate context, and we do our best to provide a thorough read and review. The outcome may still be one that’s misunderstood by the recipient but we hope everyone understands that the process we went through to arrive at that decision was a good one.
More to come next week as we hopefully bring our 2013 freshman committee process to a close.
Wendy Livingston ’03, M.Ed. ‘09
Associate Dean of Admission
Comments are closed on posts older than one year, but we still want to hear from you. If you have a comment or question for us, please email admission@wm.edu.
Who are your ideal William and Mary Scholars? My son is Hispanic and I think a good student….4.2 GPA, 28 in ACT, 1200 SAT, 760 SAT – Spanish, 400 hours of community service and National Honor Society student. Do you think he can get this honor??
Glad to know the process continues to go well! Good luck with the rest and I anxiously await an admissions decision within the next few weeks!
@Countdown, that’s very hard to say without reviewing an entire application (knowing his courses, school, etc.). The W&M Scholar award is incredibly selective so there are some great students who we’d love to give it to who we simply can’t because we have a limited number to award. He definitely sounds like a great student and someone we’d encourage to apply (can’t tell from your post if he’s a junior/prospective student or senior/current applicant).
@Kaitlyn, thanks for the well wishes.
He is a senior who applied to William and Mary. Praying that he is selected to your school. Thanks for the quick reply.
If you are able to tell us: was this particular student admitted?
Thanks!
@Countdown, we mailed most W&M Scholars awards last Friday so your son should know soon if he received it. If he didn’t, again, it may simply be because we didn’t have enough to give out, not because he didn’t deserve it.
@Curious, for some “OOC” students they absolutely are. For others, they are not. It depends on a lot of other application components. This particular one is not likely to be admitted for a variety of reasons but we hope this blog illustrates how we review such applicants.
Not yet.
@Countdown, we know some students in Norfolk didn’t get their letter ’til yesterday while some in New England got it Saturday so who can predict the mail. We do name a few additional W&M Scholars and Monroes during Committee but 99% were mailed last Friday. And if he didn’t get the award, it in no way means he won’t be admitted.
Thanks. I am hopeful. It’s hard to see a hard working person not get rewarded. He is a very committed young man.
@Countdown, that’s the downside to selective admission; we cannot reward all the great students out there with admission. Hopefully we will be able to award your son’s hard work.
I was admitted ED last year but I have been keeping up with your Admit It! blog because, frankly, it’s awesome. Just wanted to drop a quick note to thank you again for all your hard work putting our class together!
How important is it that a student take 4 years of one language? If say, a student completes level 3 during their sophomore year but does not take the language during his junior year, will that negatively affect the application?
@Tribe2017, oh wow. Thanks so much. We think you’re awesome. Hope you’ve had a great freshman year!
@Curious, taking or not taking a certain class will not, by itself, make or break a decision. However, as we review a transcript, we definitely look to see and recommend a fourth year of a foreign language. That being said, if you loaded up on other great courses instead, no biggie. But we definitely encourage students to take that fourth year if at all possible.
Hearing about all these students makes me very nervous. Before reading about the two students who have taken a combined 16 some-odd AP classes the past two years, I was somewhat confident. Now not so much.
@nervous, as we said on the last post in response to similar comments, we do not expect students to take a tremendous number of AP courses. These students are definitely the exception, not the rule. While we certainly see our fair share of transcripts with 8 or so APs on them we also see a good number with 3-5 and within both sets, some students get in and others don’t. Yes, our applicant pool is made up of tremendously smart and talented students, something you likely new when you applied to selective institutions like W&M. But the number of APs you took does not make or break your admission.
I moved to Virginia from a high school in Pennsylvania last year and I’ve been stressing out about how you guys look at OOC situations like mine! Thankfully, I had a great adjustment to my school and even became captain of the cheer team and president of some clubs. Thanks for this post though, I feel a lot better!
@nervous, It’s weird to think there are people who actually take -sixteen- APs…impressive. Meanwhile I’ve only taken three total, and I still got accepted. Don’t stress about how many APs you should take, just take the classes that you have a chance at excelling in but are also challenging.
@relieved, good for you for what you’ve accomplished at your new school. Glad this post resonnated.
@Trey and @nervous, we think there may be some confusion. Don’t think we’ve ever seen an applicant who took 16 AP courses. We think nervous was combining the number of APs of two students mentioned in recent blogs. And as we’ve mentioned, some students are impressive because of their transcripts. Others have solid transcripts but really shine in other areas and that’s why we have a diverse and dynamic class.
I’m curious about how you view IB courses. Nearly all IB classes are a two-year commitment, so does W&M consider that as two years of AP coursework? The full IB diploma requires six classes for two years, plus the TOK class, which could be considered the equivalent of 13 AP classes. My son is not pursuing the full diploma, but has already earned IB certificates in Math & Econ (both SL) during his junior year. He will earn certificates in Chemistry SL and History HL this year. He rounded out his senior schedule with online AP courses (AP Stat and AP Macro), as well as dual enrollment English and a two-semester network admin sequence. Just how does the committee compare IB vs. AP? And would a dual enrollment class be considered equally as challenging since it is a college course? BTW, I thoroughly enjoy this blog, which is by far the best admissions blog out there!
My daughter is OOC… Three high schools in three years! I was very happy to read what you consider when reviewing an OOC candidate. This information calmed our fears and concerns. THANK YOU! We had to enroll our daughter in a private school her senior year so she could fulfill her TX graduation requirements and be able to take 4 AP classes her senior year. She was unable to take a 4th year of language. Good luck this week and try to sneak in some veggies!
I am sure the answer is there, some place, but I can’t find it… so the notification date is April 1st? or BY April 1st? by email? by thick/thin envelope?
@HopefulMom, we are very familiar with the IB program and definitely like to see students take advantage of it where offered. When students do pursue the full diploma and do well in that program it’s a definite plus factor for them. Doing the certificate program is also good but of course see the full diploma as more rigorous.
@Mom/Lori, thanks for watching out for our health and glad this blog was helpful. While some OOC students are admitted while others aren’t, we do our best to provide appropriate context for them.
@Pins & Needles (good use of the & by the way), we don’t have a decision release date yet but it will be BY April 1 (in other words April 1 at the latest). All decisions are sent by email.
About how many applications does the committee have left to review before decisions go out (a rough estimate)?
Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that the Committee isn’t familiar with the IB program. Some of my prior message was to give context for others who read this blog and have no idea what is involved in completing the IB diploma. It’s a very rigorous program and many people I’ve spoken to think that IB and AP courses are essentially the same thing. I often think that IB is not valued as highly because people don’t understand what IB is all about.
This blog is very interesting and has provided some great information. Like some of the other posts, I was definitely surprised reading the academic achievements of the previous students. Like “nervous”, I had much better levels of confidence for my student before reading that these “uber” students were seemingly “on the bubble of acceptance”. I certainly appreciate the fact that you all try to consider the whole student and not just academic achievements….and I guess that is what you were trying to show in your posts.
I am also hopeful that you all are somewhat forgiving in reviewing the information. While all students have done their best in presenting themselves in the best light, I’m sure the committee has seen some errors and things that were missed in proofreading. I hope you all don’t make admission decisions on small errors like the one I noticed in your posting….”something you likely new…..”…..;)
@curious, we still have a ways to go in Committee and even once we finish there are a lot of steps to go through before we release decisions. We promise to release by April 1 but we won’t know a date of actual release until it’s upon us.
@HopefulMom, we can’t speak for other schools but we LOVE IB. We appreciate the rigor and critical thinking built into the program.
@Interesting, the students in previous blogs were on the bubble and while some parts of their application may sound maybe intimidating to others, no doubt there are parts of your application that sound intimidating to them. And we just wanted to show all the kinds of tip factors that we use. Definitely not trying to frighten anyone or lower their confidence. We’re blessed with so many great students and we have some hard decisions to make.
We do apologize for the typo. Committee does make us a bit weary. We certainly forgive small mistakes made in applications…we know that anyone can make them.
Love, love, love the blog!
I do have some questions though. Do y’all take into account a student’s intended major when making an admission decision? For example, does a student who is intending to study, say, German have a greater chance of admittance than for someone intending to study in a more popular field (e.g., biology or business)? I know there are other important factors that go into a student’s decision, but surely there must be “some” kind of quota, flexible or not.
Also, along that line, if I got a poor score on an IB exam in a subject I have ABSOLUTELY NO interest in pursuing in college, does that score matter much? I know we should always try our hardest in school but there are certain areas that people are just naturally bad at!
Speaking of OCC students, is there any way for a student who moved out from VA late in their HS career to still be eligible for in-state tuition?
Oh, another thing! Do admissions get mailed out all at once? Meaning, if an applicant gets a “yes” on the first day, does he/she wait until April nonetheless? Just curious!
@JoeB, unfortunately it’s unlikely. One of the primary qualifications for in-state status is that your parents pay income taxes to VA. If you move to another state and your parents work in another state, they will become residents of that state and therefore you will likely be out-of-state.
@Jenna,we don’t really take your intended major into account. You’re applying to W&M; not any particular program. A student interested in one program is no more likely to get in than a student interested in another program. Certainly if there’s a defined academic passion that we notice in the app and is reflected in an intended major we may take note of that but it rarely influences our decision. Given you don’t declare a major until sophomore year it could easily change so we can’t give it too much weight.
As for IB/AP Exams, if they are present in an app we do see them. Are they going to make or break an application, no. But they are part of your application record and you will take classes outside your comfort zone at W&M so we like to see you push yourself outside your comfort zone in high school.
And yes, we release all decisions at once. There are students who get reviewed early in the process who look strong but we need to see the entire pool before any decision can be finalized.
If I wish to contact my regional admissions counselor to address some last-minute concerns about my application, is it too late or bothersome to call them at this time? I’d hate to take up anyone’s precious time at this point in the year, but I really would like to get in contact. Does everyone still check their emails? Is that a better medium?
@mary, do you mind sharing your “last-minute concerns” here and we can maybe guide you or answer any questions you have. That might be easiest. While we’re happy to help, we’re a bit hard to get ahold of this time of year as Committee is an all-day, every-day process.
Well, I guess I can address two of my concerns here.
For our semester transcripts… the Common App takes care of all that automatically, right? I just want to be absolutely clear, once and for all. I’ve heard a lot of things.
Also, are you guys still accepting additional teacher recommendations and merit awards? In late Feb/early March I placed within the top 5 for a major state competition, and I would like the committee to see these awards which I received. I did try emailing my counselor telling her about this, but I haven’t heard back yet. Also, I tried to recently add one last teacher rec (late, I know!!) but again, I don’t know if you guys are still downloading supplemental information from the Common App. I really don’t wish to be a nuisance!
Thanks.
@mary, the Common App cannot automatically send your first-semester grades. Your school needs to either upload them through the Common App or send them by mail. The Common App has no way of automatically accessing your transcript. Your school is the intermediary in that communication chain.
If you emailed your counselor about your recent award, she would have printed that email and added it to your file. She may not have responded just because we’re so busy but we’re sure to add any emailed updates as they come in. We are not however downloading additional information from the Common App beyond first-semester grades. Given we are so close to the end of our process there just has to be a cut-off point so that we can bring our process to a conclusion. Don’t worry though. The presence or absence of one recommendation letter by itself will not make or break an application.
Oh, okay! I just wanted to be sure because when it says “mid-year report” I wanted to be sure that that is in fact the transcript. But yeah, my counselor has already sent everything. That would be quite creepy if the Common App had psychic powers!!
And yeah, I was kinda expecting that response as regards to my teacher rec. But hey, a girl can dream.
Thanks for responding so promptly and so thoroughly!
@mary, mid-year report is just a more general term used because some schools are on semester systems while others are on trimester or even quarter systems so it’s a good generic term for giving us a grade update. And whether or not your grades come with the actual Common App form doesn’t matter. Sounds like you’re good though on that front.
Mary- you can log onto your Common App and it will tell you when the school downloaded your school forms. My son did this when he was worried his mid-year grades had not been sent. Hope this is helpful!
@Mom, that is correct. If however a school sent them by mail there’s unfortunately no way to check. However, students can rest assured that if we need them and don’t have them, we’ll just reach out to your school ourselves.
Have all the extra admission material been sent out to students who were accepted ED?
@Taylor, yes. Those were mailed on Wednesday.
How close the results of W&M’s Net Price Calculator results with actual financial aid package award. Assuming that student inputs actual financial values from 2012 in the NPC.
Thanks.
@Senthil, that’s really hard to say. Generally they are pretty comparable but that’s dependent on a lot of factors (whether the student did in fact input the right info into the NPC, whether there are changes in fiancial circumstances, etc.)
Do you have a link to the video that was shown at the prospective student information meeting? The silly but informative one with Pedro (not sure of name) riding a scooter throughout the video pointing out facts about the university? We would love to see it again.
@SeattleMom, unfortunately we do not. Since we use it so specifically to greet our visitors, we just show it here in our building. Glad you liked it though!
I submitted a third letter of recommendation and an extra letter I wrote (which contains some extenuating circumstances with regard to my transcript) with my mid-year transcript. If the Committee already made a decision on me before the mid-year stuff got there, is there a possibility that you may take another look at my application or does the original decision stand?
Every day I check to see what the mail brings… I am not the student, I am the mom. I was hopeful about the William and Mary Scholars Award but it never came through.
@curious, if we believe mid-semester grades or additional information will impact a decision, we will hold off on finalizing a decision until they arrive. If an application goes through our review process and the outcome is pretty clear and we know that it won’t change with additional information, we’ll keep it as is.
@Countdown, we’re sorry to hear that. We do have way more students who are competitive for that award then we do scholarships to give out. Keep your fingers crossed for an admission offer.
I just don’t understand how a great student is overlooked. But thank you for the encouragement and keeping all fingers crossed for admissions.
@Countdown, we assure you that your son wasn’t overlooked. We offered W&M Scholarships to about 120 students (knowing that some will turn us down and that 120 will yield the 45 who enter as W&M Scholars). When we engaged in W&M Scholar committee discussions, we looked at probably 250 applications so there were simply more great students out there than there were awards to be offered. When applying to selective schools, the competition for scholarships unfortunately becomes even more selective. Not that this lessens the disappointment, but hopefully it helps provide some context.
Are there separate committees that evaluate in-state students versus out-of-state students?
@Haley, we all sit in committee together so we all see all of our applicants but we do evaluate all out-of-state students together and all in-state students together. In other words, in a day we’re either only looking at out-of-state students or in-state students but not both at the same time.
I know that you obviously would like to see a student succeed in whatever courses they take, but would you rather see an applicant who opts for the more rigorous IB program and let’s say gets B’s and C’s, or an applicant who takes regular courses and 1 or 2 AP classes and gets A’s? Also, would a solid SAT or ACT score balance out a decent, but not amazing GPA?
You guys say you love IB kids, so how good a chance does an IB applicant have of being admitted, on average? Is there a big advantage?
@Itsnotdelivery, our preference is to see students take a challenging program and get As and Bs (hopefully more As than Bs). Where IB is offered, we definitely recommend students pursue it and do well in it in order to help them be more competitive in our pool. But no student should take a class simply to look good on a college application…especially if they will struggle with it. That doesn’t do anyone any good.
To address your second question, while a strong SAT/ACT score is always helpful, it’s not really about making up for one part of your application with another. Sure different components can be tip factors but we encourage students to do their best in all areas of their application.
@John, there’s no way to answer that. It’s not like we keep stats on the admission rate for IB students vs non-IB students. And of course, IB isn’t available to most students. However, when students pursue the IB diploma and do well in it they definitely do well in the part of our review that focuses on the transcript and that can certainly go a long way. Doing well in IB alone does not an admitted student make but it does a competitive student make.
Do you have any idea when the decisions will be released? I know you must be getting close at this point; the anxiety is starting to eat away at my mind!
Do you have any idea when decisions will be released? I know you must be getting close; the anxiety is starting to reach fever pitch!
Oh. That awkward moment when you think your comment wasn’t submitted so you write another one….
@Caroline, we really won’t know a release date until it’s upon us. There are so many moving parts to releasing a decision and any one part can speed up or slow down the process. We will certainly let people know when we know but there’s still a lot of work ahead of us before we’re at that point.
can decision be appealed?
@hopeful, not in our process. Because we reviewed every application at least twice (if not more times), and because our process isn’t a formulaic one, reconsidering one application would require us to reconsider them all.
Are all admission leters sent at once or as they are completed?
@Pins and Needles, they are all sent at once. Rolling admission is when decisions are sent once made but we don’t practice rolling admission.
Will you post a blog when they go out so we can wait at the mail box?
@Pins and Needles, we do post our “Decisions, Decisions” blogs when decisions are released. They go out via email so you don’t have to wait for the mail.
Is the admissions committee getting close to releasing decisions, nerves are setting in, we are hoping to hear this week any chance of that happening?
@Nervous wreck, as we’ve said, there’s really no way to predict when we can release decisions until we’re right up on it. We know people are anxiously waiting and we’re moving as fast as we can. All we can tell you is that we promise they will be out by April 1.
Will kids that were deferred in ED be notified by April 1?
@Defferal, yes. ED deferred students will hear at the same time as all or ouf RD applicants.
I’m obsessed with these blogs.
I just want to thank you for this blog and some of the other great ones written by students While the student blogs only confirm my true belief that W&M is the perfect college for me(especially the recent blogs about quirkiness) the admissions blog has redeemed my faith in the process. It has all seemed so random exceptional students getting deferred or rejected from not so exceptional schools and middle of the road students obtaining scholarships to top ranked Universities. It’s helpful to get an inside look at your committee process and know that if I am rejected my application was certainly given a fair review I know the odds are not in my favor but I am still hoping for a match. Whatever the outcome thank you for making this entire process seem more human and even,at times,humorous. Hope you all have a vacation planned once decisions are made!
@curious, thanks. We hope that’s a good thing.
@Dreamer, so glad that all of the blogs have been helpful and that you feel good about our process. We always hope that all students, regardless of the outcome, know that even when the decisions don’t seem fair, the process by which they were reached is. Best of luck to you!
Do you look at how the student has improved since the start of high school or is it the bottom line final GPA the factor? For example: each year the GPA jumps quite a bit 3.5, 3.6, 3.9, 4.1
@TenMoreDays, we look at both. We look at your GPA/Rank to get a sense of how you compare with your peers and we look at your overall grade trend as we know some students are late bloomers and if there are other great aspects of your application to counteract the lower overall GPA and the slow start grade-wise, we could certainly take you.
So, does fundraising know who is getting in and who isn’t? Wondering as we got one call AND three letters today from W&M. Since our son is a triple legacy, we have the fear they are trying to get one more donation before denying him admission.
@Alum, there are established lines of communication between Admission, the Alumni Association and the Development Office. While we do not inform the other offices of every decision we make, we all communicate to ensure that special connections to W&M are noted. Our best guess is that what happened is simply a coincidence. There was definitely no hidden agenda on the part of Development; it’s just two separate processes running simultaneously. And remember, the admission process already looks out for legacies. If you didn’t see it in November, you can check out an earlier Overheard in Committee blog specifically about legacy applicants (http://blogs.wm.edu/2012/11/15/overheard-in-committee-its-that-time-of-year-again/)
Not sure if anyone is still reading this blog but I did want to come back and say that our son was admitted and we are so happy. So now that we won’t have to pay OOS tuition, we can afford to continue giving. Hail to the Tribe!
@Alum, congratulations to your son! So glad he can continue your family’s Tribe tradition.