Overheard in Early Decision Committee — The Saga Continues
Admit It! The Overheard in Committee Blogs leave you wanting more. You feel more like an insider in this process than you did previously. We get it and we’re here to give our audience what they want. So without further ado…
Overheard in Committee today: “Show me an excellent from Dance.”
We were reviewing the file of a young woman who had made an art submission. The student was fine but not flashy; what we might call standard strong (a solid applicant whose file lacked any distinguishing features). This student’s extracurricular activities were fairly narrowly focused on dance and she was involved with little outside of that particular realm. Her involvement with her dance company was fairly substantial however as she practiced for nearly 15 hours per week and had performed in significant ballets such as The Nutcracker and Swan Lake. She had wisely made a fine art submission to our faculty for review and we were hoping for a favorable review to help us with our decision.
The fine art submission is an optional component to the application. Those who have a penchant for visual art (painting, drawing, sculpting), theatre, dance or music performance can submit their work to W&M faculty for review. The faculty send their review of your work to the Admission Office which becomes part of your application. Just as we rely on our coaches to tell us who the best athletes are in our applicant pool, we rely on our fine arts faculty to help us discern true artistic talent. While the fine art submission (or its absence) does not alone determine whether or not we admit an applicant, it can have a positive impact on strong applicants as a validation of their time and talent.
The faculty use a version of the Common Application’s recommendation rating scale to rate the talents of individual applicants. The two highest ratings are excellent and outstanding and they can sometimes be a tip factor for a particular student. In this young woman’s case she received an outstanding, meaning her talent was equal to that of the top dancers on our campus. It validated her talent and the contribution she can make to campus. That became the tip factor for the committee who voted to admit her. If she had not made an art submission the decision could have easily gone the other way because we would not have any verification for her talent, and without it she may not have stood out from the pack.
The moral of this story, if you have a special talent, show it off. College applications are not a place to be modest. And chances are if you’re heavily involved with the fine arts, you already have your talent documented either on slide, CD or DVD so sending in a submission should take you little to no time at all. Share all you can, don’t leave us wanting more.
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.
Thank you so much for these blogs! Understanding the process and seeing “the other side” makes the wait (almost) bearable 🙂
One clarification request…
When you all say you hope to have ED notifications out the first week of December, do you mean the week beginning November 27th or December 4th?
Thanks so much for keeping in touch through these blogs – it is so appreciated!!
Thanks for the inside view … definitely helps make the wait time a little easier !
Absolutely Lisa. Happy to help!
For us of us who are anxiously waiting, when will we know?
We don’t have that nailed down just yet. It’s hard to know exactly when everything will be complete until it is given all of the moving parts involved in releasing decisions. We will be sure to let people know when decisions will be released once we know.
Thanks! Keeping my fingers crossed…
I know that you have said that you don’t know when the Early Decision notifications will be released except in the first week of December. That said, on the Undergraduate FAQ’s page it says Early Decision notifications are released December 1st. This has me slightly confused. Are decisions going out sometime during the 1st week or on the 1st of the month?
Stephanie, December 1 is an approximation of a release date but not a promise. We updated our FAQs instead to say the first week of December and April instead.
We know everyone is anxious to know not only their decision but when they will learn of their admission decision. What we are guarding against is promising a certain release date and then not being able to make it due to circumstances beyond our control.
Thanks so much! Reading the Admit It! blog definitely helps with the waiting!
Our pleasure Caroline. We working hard to ensure the wait won’t be too much longer.
I really enjoy reading these blog posts. Will there be another post in the Overhead in Committee series this week?
This is all so great thanks for posting it! As an anxious applicant who will willingly ask you annoying questions, how are things looking as of now? Should we be awaiting a decision that will come tomorrow or in a few more days? I realize you just responded to a question like this yesterday. Thanks!
Ana, as soon as we know when decisions will be released we’ll post it on social media, the web, our blog. We just don’t know quite yet. A few balls still up in the air. Hopefully an answer will be coming soon.
What is the name of your page on Facebook to see any news that the Office of Undergraduate Admission might put out?
Macie, we’re WM Admission (http://www.facebook.com/#!/WMAdmission)
Tara, Committee has concluded for early decision. We’ll have a blog this week of transfer committee and then more such blogs when Committee resumes in March for regular decision
Decisions are in the email queue. Good luck everyone! See our latest blog post (scroll to the top of this page and click “posts”) for more information on the decisions.
Just got my good things email, so excited to be apart of the tribe!!
Congrats Catie!