What Do You Mean There’s More?
Admit It! Optional is a loaded term. What exactly does optional mean? It is essentially a requirement? Is it strongly recommended (wink, wink)? Or is it in fact optional? William & Mary has three optional components to our application all of which are the definition of optional. You can choose to do all three; you can choose to do none. Doing all three doesn’t necessarily make you more likely to be admitted. Not doing any doesn’t necessarily make you more likely to be denied. In the end, each of our optional components is presented as an opportunity for you to share additional information about yourself and to showcase additional talents and aspects of your personality.
The most utilized optional component is uncreatively termed our optional submission. We like to think of it as show and tell by proxy and with an attitude. It takes the form of a second essay (I know, how excited are your right now…more writing) but we hope that our non-traditional prompt will allow you to feel comfortable writing a non-traditional essay if that’s the path you want to follow. Traditional essays are also accepted. We’ve received everything from a verbatim copy of the Common Application essay (that one doesn’t get past us guys – we’re not so deep in reading files that we don’t notice that the essay we’re reading is the essay we just read) to poetry to a one-sentence response on opportunity cost (which was both mildly offensive and charmingly gutsy). We’ve also received items that do not fit on a sheet of paper (and yes, the optional submission directions do instruct you to contain your response to something that can fit onto paper). We encourage you, should you pursue the optional submission, to stick to the writing and we look forward to doing the reading.
We also offer prospective applicants the opportunity to interview on campus with a W&M senior. These interviews are not about a transcript or resume review, but are instead about getting to know your personality; something that’s often hard to put fully into a paper application. The interviews are both informational (you have the opportunity to sit down, one-on-one, with a current W&M student and ask any questions you might have about the William & Mary experience) and evaluative (meaning the Interviewer will write a summation of the interview and that will be included in your file should you apply). We view this evaluation akin to that of a letter of recommendation except this letter is from someone inside the W&M community; they know our campus and how prospective students might fit in and impact our institution.
Finally, we provide those who have a talent in the fine arts (visual art, dance, theatre and music) to make a submission to the W&M fine arts faculty. The faculty then assesses your submission and provides us with that assessment. Just as we rely on our coaches to tell us which applicants have the most athletic talent, we rely on our faculty to tell us about the future artists that are in our pool.
If done well, all of these optional components can be plus factors in our process. If not done well they can impact your application negatively. For example, if you answer your cell phone during your interview (and that has happened by the way) that may impact your application negatively. If you believe you are the next great staple of Carnegie Hall but our music faculty find your piano playing painful to hear, that will certainly not be a plus factor for you. However, as with all parts of our application, each of these optional components is one part of many. A not-so-hot interview will not send your application straight to deny and a great optional essay will not put you on the fast track to admit. The decision we make is a compilation of all components. These are just some of those components.
As Porky Pig would say, “that’s all folks.” That’s all she wrote. That was the application. Admit It! now has blogs on transcripts, standardized testing, extracurricular activities, recommendations, good essays, bad essays, the interview and the optional components. We hope you enjoy reading them and that they help you to understand more about what we’re looking for and about our process in general.
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.
I know in the past students would submit videos and other creative products for the “optional essay.” Is this no longer allowed?
You are allowed to submit a video for the optional submission however it’s not overly encouraged mainly because there’s no great way to submit one. Deans don’t always have their computers with them when reading applications and even if they do, DVDs that are submitted are often not formatted properly and therefore aren’t viewable. If a URL is uploaded to the application again, we don’t always have our computers with us to view it and it’s hard to make a URL private which we want you to do because we consider all parts of the application confidential. Uploading something with words is the best way to ensure that what you submitted is viewed.
Thank you. I was also confused about that. Due to the difficulties that you mentioned, which way would you suggest to be best for submitting a video submission?
David, not sure we have a recommended way. Again, we cannot ensure that each dean has a computer handy when reviewing applications so whether you upload a URL or you send a DVD we may not have a computer with us to review your submission when reviewing your other materials. Hence why we generally discourage applicants from submitting a video.
If you want to send one however, we don’t have a recommended way. Either way is fine given you follow the guidelines we post previously.
Thank you for the advice!
I had an interview this past summer and was wondering if that should be mentioned at all. I don’t know how much of a factor that is or if it really even matters, but I was curious to know. Do you match applicants to their interview notes when you review the application?
Hi Tori, sorry for not responding sooner. Your comment got caught in our spam filter and didn’t post until today. We take care of matching interviews to applications internally so no need to worry about that on your end.