Williams College is a small college located in the forests of Massachusetts in idyllic Williamstown. The school has about 2,000 undergraduates, it’s an intimate vibe, and is known for its high-quality faculty, super small class-size, and its strong liberal arts roots. Williams students *love* interdisciplinary studies. Their acceptance rate hovers around 10%.
Their curriculum is “open-ish” with very few requirements. Students major/minor/concentrate in things like Movement Studies, Justice and Law, Maritime Studies, Critical Languages, and American Studies (along with all the classics, from English, History, German, and Math, to Psychology and Cognitive Science). They take “tutorials,” (more on these later) to further emphasize their precise fascinations.
Also, just like basically every other school, Williams is test-optional this year (and likely next year, too. Maybe forever?). Read on to better understand how to tackle their supplemental essay questions for the 2020-2021 application year.
Williams presents two options, and says the following about their supplement:
This is an opportunity for you to present another writing sample. It’s entirely optional, and you can either respond to one of the prompts below in an essay of no more than 300 words, or you can upload an academic paper (preferably in the humanities or social sciences) completed in the last academic year.
We strongly recommend (and require all of the students we work with) to write a specific and unique 300-word essay response. It shows that you went the extra mile to produce something personal and specific for Williams, and this year more than any other, that willingness matters. Colleges have even less on which to evaluate you this year, with testing being off the table, so while it may seem tempting to take the easy path and submit a paper you got an A on in English last year....don’t. It’s transparent and it says nothing about your enthusiasm for Williams.
Onto the prompt options! You have to choose one, and we’ll go through our thoughts on each.
1. The first-year Entry–a thoughtfully constructed residential microcosm of the student community that’s a defining part of the Williams experience–brings together students from around the world with different perspectives, interests and backgrounds. Imagine having a late-night conversation with your Entrymates about a community that you value. Describe that community and why it’s important to you.
This is worth doing some research on because Entry is a very specific thing on which Williams prides itself. Read articles about it and dig in a bit to see how you might fit into a small community. What do you have to bring? Be specific here. It’s sort of similar to the Yale short-take that asks, “Most first-year Yale students live in suites of four to six people. What do you hope to add to your suitemates' experience? What do you hope they will add to yours?” combined with a community essay, à la Michigan. Think about what you specifically and differently contribute to a small community or conversation, and morph it into a scene that you can lay out for Williams to envision. What are you debating, snacking on, cooking for your peers, thinking about, offering, bringing to the table, in this scene? And what makes it compelling? Why is this format of living and socializing something you want? Tell them the answer to these questions while sketching out a scene that features your unique perspective and passions.
2. All-Campus Entertainment (ACE), a student organization, hosts a weekly event called “Stressbusters”–an opportunity for students to focus on self-care by stepping away from their typical routine and enjoying some unscheduled time--and snacks!--with friends. Weekly Stressbuster activities might include a concert, playing with a therapy dog, painting pumpkins, building with Legos, etc. What’s your version of a “stressbuster,” and how does it help you rejuvenate in the midst of a hectic week?
This is Williams’ way of being like, “We really do care about self-care.” Which is good, because duh, but it’s a bit of a weak prompt unless you have a very specific ritual or exercise that you take part in that is integral to your mental health. Do you make your own soap and give it to your family and loved ones to better facilitate their own downtime? Then you’d write an essay about that. Otherwise, if your self-care routine/”stressbusters” is/are pretty commonplace (not that that’s bad! Taking care of yourself matters!), we’d recommend another prompt.
This feels more like Williams is flexing than that they want to know *truly* how you calm down “in the midst of a hectic week.”
3. At Williams, we believe that bringing together students and professors in small groups produces extraordinary academic outcomes. Our distinctive Oxford-style tutorial classes—in which two students are guided by a professor in deep exploration of a single topic—are a prime example. Each week the students take turns developing independent work—an essay, a problem set, a piece of art—and critiquing their partner’s work. Focused on close reading, writing and oral defense of ideas, more than 60 pre-determined tutorials a year are offered across the curriculum. Imagine yourself in a tutorial at Williams. What topic would you be most excited to study in that setting and why?
To clarify, while they don’t make it clear, we deeply believe that Williams is asking you to MAKE UP YOUR OWN TUTORIAL and to expand upon it, not to review a list of example Tutorials on their website and choose which one you would like to participate in. We know it’s not clear, but we really think we’re right here.
Tutorials are another thing that are important to research if you’re serious about applying to Williams. Tutorials are, as Williams explains above, specifically niche courses that cover a very narrow scope of questions and content. Reviewing THIS LIST of Tutorials is crucial because you’ll start to see a pattern of what is an appropriate Tutorial and what is not. There are a lot of them, but really do get in there and take a look to see just how specific they are, and what types of concepts are covered.
The descriptions are littered with questions and question marks, which is a big hint at what they want—they want you to expand on an area here that makes you curious and ask questions. And then they want you to elaborate on what questions you have and how/why you want to study those questions while summing them up in a neat bow of a tutorial that you title yourself. A lot of them are cross-listed also, so if you can come up with an imaginary cross-listing, then you’ll probably get bonus points. We personally think that this prompt is the most fun to answer and the most telling of who you are, so if we were applying we’d choose this one. It’s a chance to flex your academic prowess while applying it to a distinctive part of Williams.
Williams is an incredibly difficult school. This year, more than ever before, your supplements and essays are going to matter a lot. Take your time and reach out if you need help.
We know this is a lot, so let us know if you need help deciding which prompt and how to tackle it--that is exactly why we are here and why we do what we do.