Washington and Lee (W&L) is a tiny liberal arts college located in Lexington, Virginia. It’s one of the oldest colleges in the US. In fact, it’s even older than the country itself, being founded in 1749. Makes sense that due to W&L’s history and location, it’s churned out countless senators, governors, politicians, and even a Supreme Court justice.
For the class of 2027, W&L had a 17% acceptance rate. W&L is also continuing their test-optional policy for this year, but it’s important to note that of the students who submitted scores, the median ACT score was 34, and the median SAT score was 1470. Those aren’t slouch numbers! W&L actually included this handy chart to show us how many students submitted scores, broken down by # applied, admitted, and enrolled:
W&L’s supplements are a little odd, they’re all “optional” (no such thing as optional), but they also aren’t available to you until after you submit the Common App. You’ll be able to upload them into the W&L Applicant Portal after submission. With that, let’s dive in.
Washington and Lee University invites you to submit an optional 250-word short response answering the question, “Why W&L?”
A “Why Us” essay? For college admissions? Groundbreaking. All the schools are asking it, and you already know we have a strategy for it.
Your goal with this essay is to convince the admissions officers at W&L that their school is the only one for you. Think of these Why Us essays like argumentative essays you’d write for school – the thesis is that You, The Student, should go here, and then you’ll plug in a bunch of evidence to prove why it’s the right fit. You cannot simply write this essay based on vibes, and a lot of students will write this essay about vibes. So stand out from the crowd and use that big brain of yours and show them you know your stuff.
To accomplish this, you want to start with an origin story. If you want to study say, political science, your origin story should explain how this became a passion or interest of yours. And yes, you do need to declare a major for the sake of this essay. No, they won’t hold you to it. The average college student changes their major like, three times. But you want to write a brief story (like, a two-sentence story, very Hemingway) that explains this passion. Maybe you were weirdly into watching C-SPAN as a child, or you used to print out Obama’s speeches and give them to your stuffed animals. That passion then drove you to get involved in student government, led to an internship with the mayor, etc. After this lil story, you declare your major.
Once you say you’re majoring in poli sci (ofc, if you’re majoring in bio or history or econ or something else, write about that instead, please), you want to pull in specific upper-level classes that prove your interest in both the topic and the school. We say upper-level because all schools have intro-level classes like American Government, and again, your goal here is to convince them that W&L is the only place you can accomplish your dreams and passions and goals. So, go into the course catalog and pick 1-2 classes that fit into those dreams. If you wrote about how that childhood passion sparked an interest in international politics, it wouldn’t make much sense to pick a class on the politics of the Supreme Court. When you write about these classes, you can’t just say you think they look interesting – obviously, they look interesting, or you wouldn’t have picked them. Instead, focus on the why of the classes. What will they teach you that you want to know? How do these help further your goals?
After that, you want to find a professor to write about. This person should be doing research in an area you’re interested in, and again, they should be connected to your stated goals. They don’t have to be an exact match – if you want to study American electoral politics and they research interest groups, talk about the intersection of how their expertise will help you! You’re writing about the why here, not the vibes.
The W&L prompt is literally just “Why W&L” which means that you can pull in some non-academic stuff into this essay as well. You should pick an extracurricular to write about next, this can be an academic one like the debate team or the Alexander Hamilton society (a “forum for nuanced discussion about international affairs”), or you could talk about wanting to join their literary magazine, Ampersand, because you started the literary magazine at your high school and want to continue that kind of activity. The extracurricular you choose should be in line with things you’ve done in high school – don’t say you want to join the a capella group because it sounds fun and you want to give it a shot.
You don’t need a big formal conclusion. You can end after the extracurricular part, but if you (amazingly) have a few spare words (this is only 250 words, after all) (1/3rd the length of us telling you how to write it), you can include a sentence like “Washington and Lee is the perfect place for me to study [THING] because of the [THING], [THING], and [THING].
Short Answer Prompts
Washington and Lee University invites you to submit additional optional written or video responses to augment your submitted Common Application. We will provide four prompts, of which you may answer one, either through a 250-word written statement or a two-minute recorded video.
The next part of W&L’s supplementals involves choosing one of four prompts. You can either write an answer or record a video, and while we lean towards writing, you’re free to do whichever one you want. W&L has more details on these prompts here.
Our overarching advice for these prompts is to tell a story. A story is a) easier to write, b) more interesting to read, and c) will stand out more than “the diverse aspect I will bring to the school is…” A good story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Also, please resist the urge to write vague sentimental sentences that mean nothing. If you catch yourself typing something along the lines of, “This experience taught me…” please hit that backspace button and instead focus on the story.
Option 1
250 words or less or max 2-minute video: 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 has your involvement shaped your personal qualities and growth, and how has it impacted those around you?
If you have an extracurricular activity in your activities section where it just killed you that you only had 150 characters to explain it, this could be a place to expand. Alternatively, if you had an activity that you had to leave off, you can talk about it here. A few words of wisdom: do not write about a sport here (too cliche, everyone’s doing it, boring, no rizz, etc.), and the story you tell should reveal a part of your personality that is otherwise missing from your application.
If you did a lot of community service, the story you tell shouldn’t be humble bragging about all the good you did, instead, it could be about how you convinced friends to join you and they come with you every week. You want to think about the angles less written about, especially if you’re talking about common activities like community service, club leadership, student government, etc. Family is also a good option here – especially if you don’t have them represented in your Common App essay. Do you drive your little brother to soccer practice every day? Has it strengthened your relationship?
Whatever you choose to write about, your story should focus on a small moment in time. You only have 250 words, you won’t be able to write a big epic spanning years.
Option 2
250 words or less or max 2-minute video: W&L's mission statement focuses on preparing graduates for lifelong learning in a global and diverse society. Engaging with faculty, staff, and classmates with diverse identities, experiences, and perspectives is an essential component of our education. Recognizing that diversity takes many forms, what diverse aspect would you bring to W&L?
This question is showing up more and more in the wake of the affirmative action Supreme Court decision. Wow, we’ve mentioned the Supreme Court a lot in this post! Supreme Court on the brain! ANYWAYS. What we’ll say is if you are straight, white, cis, able-bodied, and/or male, this may not be the question for you. You have three other essays to choose from! So choose those.
If you are the audience for this question, you’re going to want to tell a story that exemplifies the diversity you’re bringing to the table. If you want to talk about your race, culture, or religion, you might want to tell a story about a tradition your family takes part in, a cultural dish handed down from your elders, or maybe even a story about how you and your siblings have somewhat subverted the cultural expectations placed on you. Some examples from past clients include a Bangladeshi student writing about cooking his grandma’s famous biryani for her when she was sick and a Taiwanese-American student writing about navigating the night markets while visiting family. You don’t want to go too wide with this story, instead focus on a smaller moment in time.
Option 3
250 words or less or max 2-minute video: Reveal to us how your curious mind works by sharing something you spend considerable time thinking or learning about.
A lot of schools ask this question, or a question like it, like Tufts or the UCs. What W&L wants to see here is something that is not your major. You’ve already told them about your academic passion in the Why W&L essay, so this is an opportunity to tell them about the things you’re into that are otherwise not represented on your Common App.
This is a place to flex your nerdiness, or even better, your contradictions. Are you a football player who’s also the robotics team captain? Future biomedical engineer with a side blog analyzing local politics? A budding journalist with a penchant for, like, magic?? “Thinking or learning” does not need to be strictly academic in nature. You can think about a lot of things. We, for example, spend a lot of time thinking about the cinematic masterpiece Cats (2019) and their disastrous production. This, in turn, might lead you to want to understand the ins and outs of film production or become an amateur historian of awful movies.
When you write about this, remember it’s a story! It’s a tale! Tell them about the process of falling down the rabbit hole. Describe how a journey from the Wikipedia page for Twilight led to you wanting to understand how Gerard Way witnessing 9/11 eventually led to the cancellation of the Ellen Show.
Option 4
250 words or less or max 2-minute video: On a residential college campus with a Speaking Tradition that encourages connections between individuals, using each other's names matters. Please share the story of any name you go by and what significance it holds for you.
Okay, so this one is kind of fun! Especially if you have some kind of nickname you go by, or if you’re named after a relative. With the nickname angle, you’d want to tell the story of how you got this nickname, and honestly, the more fun, the better. If you talk about being named after a relative, you want to make sure that this essay is about you and not the relative.
Some other ways you could tackle this might include your last name – did your great-great grandma change her name at Ellis Island? Did you do a genealogy project and find out how your last name has changed over the years? Do you have a hyphenated name?
We’d probably avoid using this prompt to brag about some kind of title you have, especially if it’s related to something on your activities list. We don’t want to hear about how you’ve been called Captain or President. Ignore this if you have like, won an Olympic medal or a Nobel Prize or a hot dog eating contest (shout out Joey Chestnut).
You want to make sure that the rest of your Common App is in good shape, too. We have guides on the Common App essay, the activities section, additional information (if needed), and so much more. And, btw, if you need help with those, we’re here too.
Need help with your Washington and Lee app? We got you; reach out today.