Williams College supplemental essays
Yes, but every one is optional. Williams College prints one supplemental essay in 2026-27 and requires none of them. Common App. Personal statement required (250-650 words).
That is one supplement plus the Common App personal statement: two pieces of writing in all. Early Decision closes November 1, 2026 and Regular Decision closes January 8, 2027. Every Williams College prompt is printed on this page in full, with its word limit and who has to answer it, checked against the college’s own admissions page.
Deadlines
| Round | Date |
|---|---|
| Early Decision | November 1, 2026 |
| Regular Decision | January 8, 2027 |
Checked against www.williams.edu/admission-aid/how-to-apply/first-year. Confirm on the college’s own page before you submit.
The essays, 2026-27
Optional · No length stated. Williams publishes no page count and no word count for this item.
Williams does not require a writing supplement. However, some students feel they do their best writing in an academic essay rather than a narrative piece. If you are interested in submitting an example of your academic writing, please submit a paper on any topic of your choice. It need not be graded, and may be an in-class handwritten assignment. We ask that you include a description of the assignment or prompt. Please do not submit lab reports. You can submit this optional writing supplement using any of the online application platforms.
Not an essay: this is an existing piece of the student's own academic writing, submitted as a sample, not a new essay written for the application. On the page the paragraph is headed "Additional writing supplement: " in bold and sits under the "Optional application materials" section. Williams explicitly says it NEED NOT BE GRADED and may be an in-class handwritten assignment. It must include a description of the assignment or prompt. Lab reports are excluded.
Your Williams College checklist
One supplement, optional. The first deadline, Early Decision, is November 1, 2026.
- Common App personal statementRequired250-650 words
- SupplementOptional
It saves these rows to your essay manager, where each one carries a status you set yourself and the prompt stays attached to it. Add your other schools and they land on the same page, in deadline order. Nothing written yet? The topic quiz is free as well.
Free: this page, the checklist, the essay manager and the topic quiz. Paid: a written review of a finished draft, $49 an essay.
Paste your essay for a free read
Have it in a document? or drop one here (Word, PDF, or Text).
Not sure what a review is? What an AI college essay review can and cannot do, and what a college essay grader leaves out. What the read checks against Williams College’s own prompts is on the Williams College essay review page.
Getting into Williams College
Williams College admits 8.3% of applicants. The middle 50% of enrolled students scored 1490-1570 on the SAT and 34-35 on the ACT.
About 1 in 12 applicants are admitted, at a college of 2,076 undergraduates.
| Enrolled students | 25th | Median | 75th |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAT total | 1490 | 1540 | 1570 |
| SAT reading and writing | 740 | 760 | 780 |
| SAT math | 750 | 780 | 790 |
| ACT composite | 34 | 34 | 35 |
What SAT score do you need for Williams College?
A 1570 puts you in the top quarter of the students who enrolled, a 1540 at their midpoint, and a 1490 at the bottom quarter, meaning one in four enrolled students scored below it. The same three points on the ACT are 34, 34 and 35. A quarter of an enrolled class scoring under the 25th percentile is not a rounding error, so a score below the range is a reason to strengthen the rest of the application rather than a reason not to apply.
US Department of Education, College Scorecard (2026-09-17). Percentiles describe students who enrolled, not everyone admitted. SAT totals are the reading and math bands added together, which is how every source in this market reports them and is an approximation of about 10 to 20 points, because the two sections are correlated.
- What SAT score do you need for Williams College?
- Williams College sets no minimum. Among students who enrolled, the middle 50% scored 1490-1570 on the SAT: a 1490 sits at the 25th percentile, 1540 at the median and 1570 at the 75th. A score at or above 1570 is a clear strength in the application; below 1490 it is the part of the file the rest has to make up for. These are the figures Williams College reports to the US Department of Education, released in the College Scorecard of 2026-09-17.
- What ACT score do you need for Williams College?
- The middle 50% of enrolled students scored 34-35 on the ACT, with a composite of 34 at the median. There is no cutoff: a quarter of the enrolled class scored below 34. Reported by Williams College to the US Department of Education, College Scorecard release of 2026-09-17.
- What GPA do you need for Williams College?
- The honest answer is that the federal data behind this page does not contain one. Colleges report their admit rate and their enrolled students' test scores to the Department of Education; they do not report a GPA distribution, so any site quoting an exact average GPA for Williams College is either reading that college's own Common Data Set or estimating. What the reported data does say is that Williams College admits 8.3% of applicants, and the more selective a college is, the closer to the top of the class its admitted students sit and the more the strength of your course load counts alongside the number itself.
- How hard is it to get into Williams College?
- Williams College admits 8.3% of the people who apply, which is about 1 in 12 applicants. At that rate no set of numbers makes admission likely, a perfect one included, because the college turns away far more qualified applicants than it takes. Strong grades and scores get the application read; the essays, the recommendations and what you have actually done decide it from there.
What Williams College costs after grant aid, by family income, from the same federal data.
Sort your whole college list into reaches, targets and likelies, or find colleges that fit your GPA and test scores. Both are free and neither needs an account.
Williams College essay questions, answered
- Does Williams College have supplemental essays?
- Yes, but every one is optional. Williams College prints one supplemental essay in 2026-27 and requires none of them. Every prompt is printed in full on this page.
- How many essays do you write for Williams College in 2026-27?
- One supplement, plus the Common App personal statement.
Schools with similar admit rates
Williams College admits 8.3% of applicants. The colleges either side of it in our set by admit rate, most selective first, each with its own prompts and deadlines: Swarthmore College (7.5%), Northwestern University (7.7%), Rice University (8.0%), Cornell University (8.8%), Barnard College (8.8%), Amherst College (9.0%).