Reading Rainbow

For my cats, this is the most wonderful time of the year.  For reasons I do not understand they are incredibly attracted to the stack of application folders I bring home almost every night.  One of my cats, as you can see from the photograph, loves to jump in the LL Bean bag I use to carry my folders home (the Dean of Admission lovingly gives each dean an LL Bean bag their first holiday season in the office so that they can more easily bring work home).  Another one of my cats loves to sit on the folders I have read and alphabatized on my dining room table.  Every time he comes over, my father-in-law looks at the volume of bright-colored folders spread out throughout my dining room and just gazes in awe.  He always suggests with a laugh that it would simply be easier to throw the stack of files on my staircase and whichever ones land at the top, those are the ones we should admit.  Like my father-in-law, and possibly my cats, many people believe selective admission to be a crap shoot of sorts where decisions are made arbitrarily behind closed doors by a bunch of middle-aged white men who have no connection to today’s college-bound students.  I think this version of admission is the easiest to believe…especially when a student receives a less-than-postive admission decision.  However, this process, at least at the College is not what you think it is, and your readers are not who you think they are.

Each year, I am constantly in awe of the lengths that my colleagues and I go to to ensure that our applicants are treated fairly and respectfully.  From November through March, most of work days, evenings, weekends, and every hour in between, we are surrounded by and immersed in application files.  We are not only examining your grades and test scores but we are entering your lives.  We are entirely consumed by and invested in the process of reviewing application files and creating a class.  To us in fact these files are students.  These files represent who you are as a student and who you are as a person and as such they deserve our undivided attention and our respect.  With early-decision committee less than one week away I just wanted to take this opportunity to explain what it is we consider before we make a decision.  At William & Mary there is no magic formula or point system applied to our decision-making process but instead we consider every piece of information provided by each individual student.  Some factors we consider are obvious.  We of course review the courses you have taken.  Some factors are not so obvious.  Applicants probably do not know that we spend time reviewing their high school profile and literally counting the number of advanced classes offered at their school so that we can put a student’s individual curriculum into the proper perspective.  Obviously we consider your grades.  However, students might not know how we consider those grades.  We look at the school’s grading scale, the competitive nature of the high school (how many students from that school going on to four-year colleges).  We consider whether the GPA (and ensuing class rank) is weighted or unweighted and we recognize when GPAs (and class ranks) are deflated due to a lack of weighting.  I’m sure I don’t have to mention that we look at standardized test scores.  However, students probably do not know that we look at how many standardized testing attempts were made and their high school’s average SAT/ACT scores.

We consider the class size for each student in order to put their extracurricular involvements and leadership opportunities into context.  We consider whether or not a student’s family responsibilities impacted their ability to participate in extracurricular activities.  We look at how many hours per week are spent on particular activities.  We look at whether or not a student moved during high school knowing that such an event is likely to affect their curriculum, GPA, and ability to participate in extracurricular activities.  We consider whether or not the student is a first-generation college student or a first-generation American.  We read each essay from the first word to the last…twice (each application is read in full by at least two different members of the Admission Committee).  We consider what is written in the essay, not only the content but also the style.  We consider what was said in an on-campus interview.  We read every letter of recommendation, every piece of additional information sent.    In short, we consider everything you put forward.  This is your story, your life and it is our job, our purpose, our mission.  So let the reading begin…my cats have been waiting a whole year to see those files again…and so have I!

-Wendy Livingston