William and Mary Supplemental Essays 2025-26 — Prompts & Advice

August 27, 2025

Founded in 1693, the College of William & Mary is the second-oldest institution of higher learning in the entire United States. With an acceptance rate that was 34% for the Class of 2028, W&M is a very selective school. It is even more challenging to gain admission for out-of-state students. With that in mind, it’s important to put maximum effort into every aspect of your application. Of course, this includes the William and Mary supplemental essays.

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When applying to an institution like the College of William & Mary that rejects roughly two-thirds of those who apply, you’ll need to put maximum effort into every area of the application, including the Common App and supplemental essays. Below are William and Mary’s optional essay prompts for the 2025-26 admissions cycle. Additionally, you’ll find our advice for composing strong essays.

William and Mary Supplemental Essays

All applicants to William and Mary have the option to respond to one or two of six available prompts:

William & Mary is a community that fosters deep human connection. We reflect on the lessons of history to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing world. We engage diverse perspectives and seek wisdom in bridging differences. Together, we are unceasing in our efforts to make a meaningful difference in our communities, the state, the nation, and the world.

To help us learn more about you, we invite you to share additional information by answering up to two of these optional short-answer prompts. Think of this optional opportunity as show and tell by proxy.

1) Are there any particular communities that are important to you, and how do you see yourself being a part of our community? (300 words)

Keep in mind that William and Mary has already seen the President’s Volunteer Service Award and the impressive number of hours you volunteered at multiple nonprofit organizations. They know that you have been an active member of your high school/local community. The admissions committee now desires to understand precisely how you will contribute to their community of undergraduate students. As such, the strongest William and Mary community essays not only highlight a clear link between your past efforts and future aims but also show evidence of meaningful school-specific research.

For example, if you’ve dedicated many hours to working adoption events for your local animal shelter, think about how that experience will strengthen your specific contributions to the William and Mary community. It could be a direct link, such as your hope to join the Animal Rights Club, or an indirect one—as a political science student, perhaps you’ll bring your skills in advocacy and communication to student government.

Finally, given the word count, you’ll be able to produce the strongest response if you focus on just one specific community.

2) Share more about a personal academic interest or career goal. (300 words)

Out of everything on this Earth, what makes you tick? What keeps you up at night? What subject makes you read books and online content until your eyes bleed? Immerse the reader in your intellectual journey of choice. Share what made you interested in the topic and how you’ve pursued knowledge. Finally, be sure to address what you’ve learned about yourself and how you hope to continue pursuing this interest in the future (tip: this is a great place to incorporate William and Mary specifics).

Alternatively, if you happen to have clear-cut career goals, such as becoming a physician, attending law school, or addressing coral bleaching, you can take this opportunity to tell the admissions committee more about it. How did this career goal develop, and what have you done to pursue it so far? Moreover, how do you intend to work toward your goal at William and Mary in particular?

3) How has your family, culture and/or background shaped your lived experience? (300 words)

Take note of the wide-open nature of this prompt. You are essentially invited to talk about any of the following topics:

A perspective you hold
Your upbringing
Your cultural background
Your religious background
Your family background
Your race/ethnicity
Your sexual orientation or gender identity

Although this prompt’s open floor plan may feel daunting, a good tactic is to first consider what has already been communicated on other areas of your application. What important aspect(s) of yourself have not been shared (or sufficiently discussed)? The admissions officer reading your essay is hoping to connect with you through your written words, so—within your essay’s reflection—be open, humble, thoughtful, inquisitive, emotionally honest, mature, and/or insightful about what you learned and how you grew.

You’ll then need to discuss how your family, culture, and/or background has influenced your life and perspective, and in what ways.

4) What led to your interest in William & Mary? (300 words)

This is a classic “Why Us” essay. If you select this option, here are some ideas of how you can most productively utilize the space:

Cite specific academic programs, professors, research opportunities, experiential education programs, study abroad programs, student-run organizations, W&M’s mission, etc. Be sure to discuss why they interest you and how you hope to take advantage of them.
Share how W&M will support your past/current endeavors.
Discuss why you decided to apply, particularly if connected to a William & Mary-related personal experience, such as a campus visit, conversation with an admissions rep, event you attended, etc.

5) Tell us about a challenge or adversity you’ve experienced and how that has impacted you as an individual. (300 words)

Of course, some teens have faced more challenges than others, potentially related to an illness or medical emergency, frequent moving, socioeconomic situation, natural disaster, or learning disability, to name a few. However, you don’t have to have faced a significant challenge to write a compelling essay (and even if you have faced a significant challenge, you don’t have to write about it if you’re not comfortable doing so). Writing about a common topic like getting cut from a sports team, struggling in a particular advanced course, or facing an obstacle within a group project or extracurricular activity is perfectly fine.

Any story told in an emotionally compelling, honest, and connective manner can resonate with an admissions reader. The bottom line here is that there are no trite topics, only trite answers. The important thing to keep in mind is that the challenge/story itself is less important than what it reveals about your character and personality.

Given the 300-word limit, your essay needs to be extremely tight and polished. Accordingly, getting this one precisely right will involve a round or two of revision, ideally with some insight/feedback from a trusted adult or peer in the process.

6) If we visited your town, what would you want to show us? (300 words)

No matter where you live, local spots of interest abound, so take this opportunity to show admissions something you genuinely love or appreciate about where you’re from. Perhaps it’s your local farm stand, a museum, a restaurant, a public art installation, the beach that you run on in the mornings…regardless of your answer, the most important part of this response will be why. Why do you want to show this particular location to an admissions officer, and what do you hope they learn about you in the process?

Do I really have to respond to optional essays?

In such a , not filling out an essay would be a suboptimal decision for a prospective applicant. Applicants applying to a dozen or more schools may be exhausted after already plowing through countless other supplemental prompts. However, essays are simply not the place to cut corners.

Unfortunately, skipping William & Mary’s optional essay could hurt your candidacy. Since this institution only offers non-evaluative interviews with current W&M seniors, there are limited ways to connect with an admissions officer. Accordingly, the optional supplemental essay(s) will be one of your very best opportunities.

How important are the William and Mary supplemental essays?

W&M lists 12 factors as being “very important” to the admissions committee: rigor of secondary school record, class rank, GPA, standardized test scores, essays, recommendations, extracurricular activities, talent/ability, character/personal qualities, state residency, volunteer work, and work experience.

So, we know that the Common App essay and the optional supplemental essays are among the top dozen factors in what is a genuinely holistic admissions process. It is fair to say that the essays will be read carefully. Further, they can be a separating factor between two comparable “on the cusp” applicants.

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College Admissions

Dave Bergman

Dave has over a decade of professional experience that includes work as a teacher, high school administrator, college professor, and independent educational consultant. He is a co-author of the books The Enlightened College Applicant (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016) and Colleges Worth Your Money (Rowman & Littlefield, 2020).

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