Decision Explanations
Receiving admission decisions can be an emotional time. Last year, we received almost 18,000 applications to enroll a class of approximately 1,600. Each application is distinct and admirable, and every applicant should be proud of all they have accomplished. Email notifications about decisions will be sent directly to the email address listed by the student in their application.
Accepted
- You are officially a member of this year’s William & Mary class!
- Your admission letter (signed personally by Dean Tim Wolfe) is on its way and will be arriving in the coming days.
- The Welcome website will provide you with further details about submitting your enrollment deposit and other useful information.
- If you also applied to the St Andrews William & Mary Joint Degree Programme, those decisions will not be made until the spring. If you applied Early Decision I, you will receive a decision on your acceptance to W&M in the winter. Another separate decision specific to your St Andrews Programme admission will be sent with Regular Decision notifications.
Early Decision Deferred to Regular Decision
We are sorry that we are not able to admit you to W&M at this time. You are a bright and accomplished individual. We wish that we could admit every great student who applies to W&M, especially those committed to enrolling with us. Unfortunately, given the small size of our entering first-year student class, and the competitiveness of our applicant pool, this is not the reality of our process.
Next Steps
- Your application will be automatically reviewed again, in its entirety.
- You will be notified of our decision during our Regular Decision review process in the spring.
- Updates to make in the coming weeks:
- Midterm/semester grades
- Recent accomplishments
- A statement of your continued interest in W&M
- This statement does not have to be overly elaborate, just simply explain why you feel like William & Mary is the best fit for you.
- We encourage you to look closely at other schools to which you have applied. Regular Decision is very competitive.
Waitlisted
We wish we could send good news to all of our wonderfully talented applicants. Unfortunately, the small class sizes that make William & Mary so appealing also force us to make tough decisions when considering qualified applicants. As a result, we are not able to admit all of the students who may be competitive for admission. While it may not feel like it, a waitlist decision is a positive one. If we had any more space, we would have offered one of those positions to you.It’s tough being on a waitlist, mainly because you are being asked to continue to wait. While this can be both confusing and frustrating, we hope this decision leaves the door open for you to keep considering W&M. With that being said, we encourage you to fully explore the other universities that have offered you admission and to submit an enrollment deposit by the May 1 deadline.
If you remain sincerely interested in W&M, you can accept your spot on our waitlist by completing the online form linked in your portal.
Denied
You are smart. You are accomplished. You are kind. You are deserving. Any school would be lucky to have you. This decision is not a reflection on you; it is only a reflection of how many amazing applicants we receive each year. This is the unfortunate reality of a selective admission process in which the number of seats is limited — we must send bad news more often than good news. We know that many of the students that were denied would be absolutely successful William & Mary students, and we have immense confidence in your abilities to do great things in college and beyond.Your academic record, recommendations, extracurricular activities and essays that you presented were all tremendous. What’s hard for many to understand is that most students who apply to W&M have taken similarly challenging courses, have earned tremendously high GPAs/class ranks, have earned a high score on the SAT/ACT, have compiled a dynamic extracurricular resume and have written thoughtful essays. As we decide who to admit, we are not selecting from good and bad, but from great and great. Because our applicants do so many things right, we have the difficult task of making many nuanced and difficult decisions. This year more than ever, with a record-breaking number of applications, our committee had to make many tough decisions.
Nothing that we write here will make this decision any easier. You are likely feeling upset, sad, frustrated, confused and perhaps a bit angry. All of these emotions are natural. You applied to William & Mary, and this decision is less than ideal. Please know that while this is a final decision for your first-year student application to W&M, this is NOT a judgment on either your record of accomplishment or college potential. Many of our applicants, like you, do so many things right, and as a result, we have the difficult task of making many nuanced decisions among so many terrific students. We have full confidence that another school (and likely several) will offer you admission, and that you will do great things at whichever school is lucky enough to have you as a member of their first-year student class. And if W&M remains your top choice even after starting your college career elsewhere, feel free to check out our Transfer Pathways.
Transfer Information
