Williams is a highly-prestigious small liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts in the Berkshire mountains. The Williams community is tight-knit, passionate, curious, and committed to the process of learning — there are also no fraternities, which makes for a distinct social environment. The academic calendar at the college highlights this, as it’s a twist on the standard. They have two four-course semesters, which is normal, but also a one-course January term where students go deep into a single class. The most popular majors include math, political science, economics, English, and biology, and 43% of the 2,000 students graduate with more than one major. The acceptance rate is 8.5%, and they receive over 15,000 applications annually.
Williams is test-optional, so you can submit ACT or SAT scores if you want to, but they don’t emphasize it as important. If you are considering applying and submitting scores, make sure that you time your tests before the ED deadline, because Early Decision is your best way of getting in. 44% of the most recent class was accepted Early Decision, underlining the power of an early application.
If you’re considering applying to Williams, send us an email. We help students get into their dream schools.
The ‘Supplement’
The nice thing about the Williams supplement is that you’ve already done it. Truly, it’s already done. Don’t believe us? It really is already done. “How so?” you ask. It was a school assignment.
For the 2023-24 application season, Williams is not requiring a written supplement to the Common App — or even offering the option of doing one. Instead, they’re letting you send in your homework. Not your homework, exactly, but a paper you’ve already done and that you are (ideally) immensely proud of and confident in.
Students applying to Williams are invited to submit an academic paper from the past year. There are some guidelines that you need to keep in mind, though. The paper must be 3-5 pages, and must have been written in 12 months prior to you pressing submit. It does not need to be graded, but it does have to have been for a class. They request that you include a description of the assignment or prompt that led to the paper, and it can be creative or analytical and on any topic. These requirements leave room for so many different types of papers, but there is one thing they don’t want: lab reports. Williams specifically requests that you not submit a lab report — so please don’t do it.
Scientific Research Abstracts
There’s one more thing you can submit with your application if it applies: an abstract of scientific or mathematics research if you are “considering a research or academic career.” They are specifically interested in research that was “significant,” which can be confusing because that is such a subjective designation. We take it to mean research that spanned a number of months, or even a full semester or year, rather than a short-term project.
If this applies to you, Williams invites you to send a brief description of their work on the application or by emailing it in.
We love the Williams supplement because it allows you to augment your application and show them more of who you are, but it doesn’t give you additional work to do — which makes it the best of both worlds. Applying to college is hard, and Williams has figured out how to balance comprehensive application review with a humane application process. We think that’s pretty awesome.
If you’re confused about how to stand out without a supplement, send us an email. We help students make a splash.