Overheard in Committee Part Deux
Admit It! Part one left you intrigued and you want to hear more about what goes on in Committee. Hopefully part deux (a Hot Shots references for those readers who are old enough to remember the early ‘90s) will keep you coming back for more.
Overheard in Committee today: “How many students are in the senior class?”
Why do we want to know this? Class size can give us a great deal of context for evaluating a student’s class rank (if provided) and their level of extracurricular involvement.
Regarding class rank, when the senior class is very large (say 600, 700, 800 or more students — and yes, there are high schools out there with senior class sizes of even 1,000 students or more), being a high-ranking student is even more impressive. If you’re ranked number 3 in a class of 800 students, that’s no small feat and something that can impress the committee. If your senior class is small, say 50 students, being number 5 means you’re barely in the top decile and number 6 is outside of the top 10% but in a smaller class, rank becomes less of an indicative measure of comparative performance because the denominator is so small.
Regarding extracurricular involvement, we know that opportunities for leadership and advancement in extracurricular involvement can be competitive. That competition is only amplified when the class size is bigger. Admit It! It’s easier to nab a lead role or be elected student body vice president in a class of 50 than it is in a class of 550. There are simply fewer students competing for the same opportunities. That’s said in no way to diminish the extracurricular accomplishments of those who attend smaller high schools but it’s meant to give context to the types of factors we consider and the holistic lens through which we review applications. When class size is smaller, leadership is generally expected of applicants in some way, shape or form because you should be easily able to find your niche and excel in that niche when fewer students are competing for the same opportunities. When class size is larger, it seems unfair to expect leadership in applicants — and when leadership is present, it’s that much more impressive.
No doubt this blog topic is headed for a trilogy (and likely several sequels thereafter) so stay tuned.
Wendy Livingston ’03, M.Ed. ’09
Senior Assistant 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.
How are leadership roles outside your school seen compared to inside your school? Also, most leadership roles in my school are a popularity contest or a “I’ll take this one, you can have that one” so everyone can have something for their college app. I didn’t play sports at my school because of my commitment to dance and local theatre. I don’t mean to sound arrogant but I would much rather spend my time with adults and mature teens away from the typical high school “drama”. I choose to look outside the school, ie: teaching dance classes, dance captain for my local theatre, etc. I’m not saying I’m not involved in my school, I am, but I felt I had greater opportunities outside of my school.
Sarah,
Great question. Leadership positions outside the school are equally strong accomplishments. We certainly don’t consider a youth group president for example to be lesser leadership than a key club president. Certainly didn’t mean to exclude those in the blog post but the post was talking mostly about school context.
While we do understand that popularity can play a role in in-school leadership selection, we cannot assume that nor can we know the ins and outs of every high school social landscape so we consider in-school leadership well deserved just as we would outside-of-school leadership
I really appreciate this blog. One question, wasn’t sure where to ask:
Is it possible to be notified of acceptance early, even if you did not apply early? I’ve heard people say they were accepted, and simply wanted to clarify.
Gosh, these blogs help easy my horrific tension!
My only hope is that the committee also takes into account as much of the life of the applicant as they can. I was on track to become student council president at my old school, but I moved the summer before my senior year to another small school, where the positions were already decided. As well, many leadership positions simply aren’t available at small schools (my school has about 200 students in middle and high school) because they don’t have the teachers to lead clubs or activities. I know I would love to be involved, but I just don’t have all the opportunities, and moving to an already close-knit school the last year (where things are decided the spring prior) makes it difficult. In short, it’s a bummer.
Sam,
Glad to hear you’re enjoying this series of posts.
We certainly understand that students who move during high school often lose the ability to gain leadership positions and oftentimes, their curriculum is disrupted. This is only exacerbated when a student transfers for the senior year. We totally get that and take that into account when reviewing an application. We certainly do not expect students who moved during their senior year to hold leadership positions no matter what size of school they attend. And for those students who move during high school who do achieve leadership positions, that’s certainly seen as impressive.
Elle,
Unfortunately it is not possible to receive your decision early. We do notify scholarship recipients early of their admission. The rest of the admission notifications (the remaining admits, all of the waitlists and all of the denies) are released on the same day. We have not nailed down that exact date yet but it’s early April at the latest.
Hello Wendy –
Does this mean that all scholarship recipients have already been notified?
Thanks,
Wayne
Wayne,
Almost all scholarships have been awarded and those notifications left our office last Wednesday (they were mailed). We will identify a few more scholarship recipients as we conclude our review process in the next few weeks but nearly all merit scholarship recipients have been notified. Athletic scholarship recipients will be notified at the time of their admission decision (in their mailed letter that follows the email notification) and of course Financial Aid (need-based aid) is awarded shortly after admission notifications are sent.
This is branching off just a little bit… but how would we go about informing the admissions committee of extracurricular achievements or awards that we would like to be considered that have been accomplished AFTER the application was sent in?
Courtney, you can send an update via email to admission@wm.edu or you can email your regional dean directly (you can find your regional dean at http://www.wm.edu/admission/undergraduateadmission/meetthecommittee/index.php. Send whatever you’d like to send ASAP as we will be releasing decisions in the next few weeks.
When you say almost all the scholarships have been awarded and recipients notified, does that include transfer applicants? Thanks in advance!
Christy,
Only freshman scholarship recipients have received any notification. No transfer decisions have been released. Unfortunately there are no scholarships for transfer students, only need-based aid. All transfer decisions will be released in late April via email.