Washington and Lee is a liberal arts school in Lexington, VA with about 1,750 undergraduate students. Although Washington and Lee is small, the school is home to a few unique programs including Poverty studies and the Williams school, which is a business education within the framework of a liberal arts curriculum. The school also has an interesting schedule: there is a fall term, a winter term, and then a spring term. Spring term is only four weeks long, and during that time students take only one class and do a deep dive on a specific subject. The acceptance rate for the class of 2023 was 18%.
Washington and Lee’s supplements are optional, but if you’ve ever read this blog before you know there’s no such thing as an optional supplement.
Please describe how you have familiarized yourself with Washington and Lee University and what aspects of W&L's community are most exciting to you.
Don’t let the words “please describe how you have familiarized yourself with Washington and Lee” throw you off. We’re not fans of this phrasing because a lot of students who are writing this prompt will, quite literally, go into detail about how they came across the school. Telling the admissions committee that you stumbled upon the school during a late-night google search, or how your Aunt Linda went there and got you a sweatshirt is not what they’re looking for. What this question really asks is: Why do you want to go to Washington and Lee, and what makes you a good fit?
Now is your chance to show the admissions committee (with a story, but more on that later) why you and Washington and Lee go together perfectly. The word count is short so here are the things you should include:
Your intended major
1-2 classes you’d like to take
A professor you’d like to work with
A student organization or club you plan to join
First up: your major. Start by looking at W&L’s academic programs. If you’re unsure as to what you’d like to major in, do some soul searching. Think about your favorite classes and the projects you’ve worked on that you didn’t totally hate. The major that you choose should make sense within the context of the rest of your application, which means that you should have done well in the classes that align with the major you choose to write about.
You have to pick a major because writing that you’re undecided is a red flag. The blog post linked before explains this in greater detail, but basically colleges want to admit students with specific academic interests (aka a major) because they’re more likely to graduate in four years. They’re also trying to create a balanced class, and writing that you’re undecided makes that hard.
Compare your academic interests to the offerings at Washington and Lee until you’ve found something that excites you. Let’s say you land on English. Washington and Lee’s website is one of the more user friendly ones we’ve come across, and for each major there is a set of “highlights” listed on the homepage. Read those. This supplement is a research assignment, and you need to dig into whatever major you choose and find classes that you want to take. Look at the course catalogue and find 1-2 upper level (200-300) level courses that you want to take. The classes that you choose should be about subject matter that excites you, and also (and this is where a lot of students get tripped up) about subject matter that you’re already familiar with. A good reason for wanting to take Advanced Creative Writing: Poetry would be your internship experience at a literary magazine. Writing that you want to take Introduction to Film because you like movies is not a good reason.
Back on the homepage of your major, research professors and find one that you’d like to work with. Write about how your prior experience would make you a valuable member of their team or research project.
W&L would also like to know how you plan to spend your time outside of the classroom. Look at the list of student clubs and organizations and find something that is related to an extracurricular activity that you did in high school. Write about your interest in the club and how your experience will help you contribute.
Once you’ve done all of the research above, find a way to weave your findings into a short story about yourself with a beginning, middle, and end. Your response should not be in list format. Think about your experiences (educational, work, research, extracurricular and/or project related) and find something that can be used as a lens through which tell your story.
Please describe an aspect of your life outside of school that is important to you, such as an extracurricular activity, a job or a family responsibility. How does your involvement impact you and those around you? (250 Words)
This prompt allows you to give the admissions team a better picture of who you are and how you spend your time outside of school. Most colleges ask students about their extracurricular activities, but what we love about this question is the addition of the words “job or family responsibility.” Stanford did the same thing this year.
Not everyone finishes their school day and heads to a student government meeting or to soccer practice. There are many high school students who go to work after school and spend their weekends helping their parents out with their younger siblings. And those things speak to who you are just as much as being a member of the robotics team. We encourage TKG clients to get jobs, and we think it’s cool to see a school acknowledge the fact that not all time spent out of school is allocated to traditional extracurricular activities.
If you have a job or a family responsibility, you’ll probably know how to answer this question. Tell them about it! Share that aspect of your life. Tell them why it’s important to you and those around you. As always, write your answer in story form. It could work to take them through a “day in the life,” or you might want to focus on an especially memorable day or experience.
If you’re better suited to answer the question by talking about an extracurricular, take a look at your activities. Do not write about the same extracurricular activity that you wrote about in the first supplement. Try to find a link between another activity that sheds light on a new aspect of your personality that is yet to be represented with your application.
Then, look at the list of student organizations and clubs at W&L and see if you can find something similar. This prompt does not blankly state that you need to be able to continue doing it if you get in, but if it’s a possibility, you should include that. This will show them that you did the research and really care about the school.
W&L is asking you to “describe” both the extracurricular, and why you care about it, and this too should be framed through a story. Instead of writing “I’m on the drama team and lead all of our fundraising efforts,” show (don’t tell) them what that’s like.
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