Short answer

  • The latest Williams College acceptance rate in this article is 7.48% for the Class of 2030, derived from 1,239 admission offers from 16,557 applicants. The Williams Record reports the same cycle as 7.4% and calls it the lowest acceptance rate ever recorded at the college.
  • For the Class of 2029, Williams reported 15,520 applicants and 1,336 admitted students in its Common Data Set 2025-2026 filing, giving a derived rate of 8.61%.
  • For the Class of 2028, the College Board profile for Williams reports 15,409 applicants and 1,272 admitted students, with an acceptance rate of 8.25%.
  • In plain terms, about 7 to 9 applicants in every 100 received an offer in each of those three cycles. That is the sense in which Williams is described as highly selective.
  • The Class of 2030 split by route was very uneven: Regular Decision produced 981 offers from 15,534 applicants, a derived rate of 6.32%, while Early Decision produced 258 offers, giving a derived rate of 25.22% on 1,023 Early Decision applications compiled from Common Data Set data. Early Decision is binding, so the higher rate must not be read as an easier route for an undecided applicant.
  • Williams is truly test optional, according to its Common Data Set 2025-2026 filing. Current first-year deadlines on the official first-year page are November 15 for Early Decision and January 4 for Regular Decision, and the application fee is $65, with a fee waiver available.
  • The acceptance rate is an outcome for a past cycle. It is not a prediction for a future cycle, and it is not a personal chance of admission for any individual applicant.

If you search for the Williams College acceptance rate, you will find a single small percentage quoted as if it were a permanent fact about the college. It is not. It is the result of one admissions cycle, for one entering class, at one point in time. Every admissions figure below is tied to the entering class it describes, and every percentage calculated from published counts is labeled as a derivation, not as a figure the source itself printed. Williams College is a private nonprofit liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and its review is holistic: its first-year page states that two admission officers work together to review each application. The rate therefore describes a whole applicant pool, not any one person in it.

The Latest Verified Rate: Class of 2030

For the Class of 2030, admitted in the 2025-2026 admissions cycle, Williams received 16,557 applications and offered admission to 1,239 students, giving a derived rate of 7.48% rounded to two decimal places. The Williams Record, reporting the cycle from the Dean of Admission and Financial Services, reports the combined rate as 7.4% and describes it as the lowest acceptance rate ever recorded at the college, with the previous record low of 7.5% occurring in the 2023-2024 cycle. That 7.5% was the announcement-time rate for the Class of 2028 (1,159 offers at announcement); the final Common Data Set count for that class is 1,272 offers, or 8.25%, which is the figure used in the trend table below. The Class of 2030 counts are announcement-time; the final Common Data Set filing for this cycle may revise the counts, as it did for Classes of 2028 and 2029. Note that 1,239 offers from 16,557 applicants is 7.48%, which rounds to 7.5% at one decimal place, so the Record’s 7.4% reflects its own calculation basis (possibly truncation or a different application total at calculation time) and is not reproduced here as a rounding of 7.48%.

The Record report also gives the route breakdown. Williams offered admission to 981 applicants through Regular Decision on March 20, and those applicants joined 258 students admitted through the binding Early Decision process. The report also notes 14 students who matched through QuestBridge as members of the Class of 2030. Readers should not add those 14 to the 1,239 total, because 981 plus 258 already equals 1,239, and the report does not state that the QuestBridge matches sit outside that total. Regular Decision applications reached a record 15,534, an increase of more than 1,000 from the previous year on the Record’s Regular Decision series. The college waitlisted 2,138 students and denied admission to 12,395 in the Regular Decision round, and admitted students had until May 1 to respond. The target first-year class size was 560 students, an expectation at announcement time, not a final enrollment count, so this article does not calculate a yield rate from it.

How the Acceptance Rate Is Calculated, and Why Two Sources Can Differ

The acceptance rate for a class is the number of applicants who received an admission offer, divided by the total number of applicants, multiplied by 100. It does not count students who were waitlisted but never offered a place, and it does not count students who were offered a place but chose to enroll elsewhere. It is a measure of offers, not of enrollment. A college can therefore offer admission to 1,239 students and still enroll only about 560 first-year students, because many admitted students choose another college.

Timing, rounding, and cycle labels explain most remaining differences. An announcement made when letters first go out reports offers at that point, while a later Common Data Set filing reports a fuller picture after the cycle closes, so the two counts can differ, sometimes materially. The Class of 2028 shows this at a small scale: the College Board profile reports 15,409 applicants, while a secondary compilation from Williams Common Data Set data reports 15,411, with the same 1,272 admitted students and the same 8.25% rate in both cases. Rounding also matters: the Class of 2030 rate is 7.48% to two decimal places, 7.4% as reported by the Record, and 7% as a whole number. Finally, the cycle itself matters most. A literal-phrase search for the exact banked phrase “williams college acceptance rate” returned pages quoting 8%, 8.2%, and 10%, among other figures, with several pages giving no clear cycle label at all. None of those search-result figures should be quoted as the current rate without checking the class it describes. When a page does not name its class, treat its percentage as unverified.

The Trend Over Recent Cycles

On a Common Data Set compilation basis, the Williams acceptance rate has fallen sharply over the past decade, driven mainly by rising applications against a fairly stable number of offers. The table below sets out the compiled series, with each rate derived from the counts shown. The compilation is secondary, but the two most recent rows cross-check against sources opened for this article: the Class of 2029 row matches the Common Data Set 2025-2026 filing exactly, and the Class of 2030 row matches the Williams Record total offers figure.

Entering classApplicantsAdmittedDerived acceptance rate
Class of 20218,5931,25314.58%
Class of 20229,5601,24012.97%
Class of 20239,7151,22412.60%
Class of 20248,7451,32215.12%
Class of 202512,4521,0998.83%
Class of 202615,3211,3028.50%
Class of 202711,4651,1459.99%
Class of 202815,4111,2728.25%
Class of 202915,5201,3368.61%
Class of 203016,5571,2397.48%

Applications nearly doubled from 8,593 for the Class of 2021 to 16,557 for the Class of 2030, while admitted students stayed within a range of 1,099 to 1,336. When the denominator grows and the numerator stays roughly flat, the rate must fall, and that arithmetic explains most of the decline. The series is not a smooth slope: the Class of 2024 rate of 15.12% sits above its neighbors because applications dipped to 8,745 that year, and the Class of 2027 total of 11,465 also stands out against totals above 15,000 on either side. The most recent three cycles cluster from 7.48% to 8.61%, a more useful planning range than any single year. Two small variances should be noted: for the Class of 2026, the Record report states 1,303 accepted in total, one more than the 1,302 in the compilation, while the rate rounds to 8.5% on either count; and for the Class of 2028, the College Board reports 15,409 applicants, two fewer than the compilation, while the rate is 8.25% on either count. Neither variance changes any conclusion here.

Early Decision Versus Regular Decision

Williams offers two first-year routes. Early Decision is binding: an applicant admitted under Early Decision is expected to withdraw other applications and enroll at Williams, and may submit an Early Decision application to only one institution. Regular Decision is non-binding, and an admitted applicant has until May 1 to accept a place. Williams offers no non-binding Early Action plan, according to its Common Data Set 2025-2026 filing.

For the Class of 2030, the derived Regular Decision rate was 6.32% (981 offers from 15,534 applicants), while the derived Early Decision rate was 25.22% (258 offers from 1,023 Early Decision applications, as compiled from Common Data Set data). For the Class of 2029, the filing reports 964 Early Decision applications and 256 admits for the Fall 2025 entering class, giving a derived Early Decision rate of 26.56%. The Early Decision rate has therefore stayed in the mid 20s, while the Regular Decision rate has fallen to the low single digits. That gap must be read with care. The Early Decision pool is self-selecting, made up of students who have already decided Williams is their first choice and are willing to commit before seeing other offers, so the higher rate does not prove that applying early causes a fourfold improvement in any individual applicant’s chances. A reader who is torn between colleges, who needs to compare financial aid offers, or who is not ready to commit in November should treat Regular Decision as the appropriate route, even though its published rate is lower.

The Enrolled Student Profile: Fall 2025

The Williams Common Data Set 2025-2026 filing reports 15,520 applicants, 1,336 admitted students, and 567 enrolled students for the Fall 2025 entering class, the Class of 2029, giving a derived yield of 42.44% (567 divided by 1,336). Among enrolled first-time, first-year students, 43% submitted SAT scores (242 students) and 18% submitted ACT scores (104 students). A majority therefore submitted no score on either test, consistent with a truly test optional policy, and no reader should treat a test score as a requirement at Williams.

For enrolled students who did submit scores, the middle 50% ranges were: SAT composite 1490 to 1550, with a median of 1520 and a mean of 1510; SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing 740 to 770; SAT Math 740 to 790; and ACT composite 33 to 35, with a median and mean of 34. These ranges describe enrolled submitters only. They are not cutoffs, they are not averages for all admitted students, and they say nothing about students who did not submit. Class rank needs the same qualification: among enrolled students who submitted rank, 88% were in the top tenth of their class, 97% in the top quarter, and 99% in the top half, but only 17% submitted rank at all. On grade point average, the filing reports that 74.25% submitted a grade point average but does not report a usable average in the copy consulted for this article, so this article states no average grade point average for Williams, and third-party averages should not be quoted as Williams figures without a Williams source.

How Williams Reviews Applications

The catalog states that while there are no absolute requirements for admission, competitive first-year candidates typically study English, math, natural science, foreign language, and social studies in four-year sequences and present a distinguished record throughout their secondary school career. It also states that the academic record is the most important factor, and that the college considers non-academic involvements and achievements at school and in the community. The first-year page adds that two admission officers work together to review each application, with notes shared later with the Admission Committee, which the college views as a community-building exercise. The committee is therefore not simply ranking applicants by a single number; it is assembling a class across interests, backgrounds, and talents. The filing lists rigor of secondary school record, class rank, academic grade point average, application essay, and recommendations among the factors given the greatest weight, with test scores considered if submitted. No factor is described as a guarantee, and no cutoff score or grade is published in the Williams sources opened for this article.

Application Checklist, Deadlines, and Fees

First-year applicants apply through the Common Application, Apply Coalition with Scoir, or the QuestBridge Application. The checklist on the official first-year page is: school transcript and mid-year report; recommendations from a school counselor and two teachers; the $65 application fee or a fee waiver; and, for Early Decision applicants only, the Early Decision Agreement Form. School documents can arrive shortly after the completed application itself.

ItemCurrent first-year page
Early Decision deadlineNovember 15, decision by December 14
Regular Decision deadlineJanuary 4, answer by April 1, reply by May 1
Application fee$65, fee waiver available

One variance should be noted: the catalog and the filing give a Regular Decision deadline of January 5 and an Early Decision notification date of December 15, one day later in each case than the current first-year page. Dates shift slightly by cycle, so the current first-year page should be treated as controlling for the cycle in which you apply. The same caution applies to transfer dates: the catalog gives a transfer deadline of March 3, with decisions by April 15 and replies by June 1, while the filing cycle table shows March 2 for closing and April 14 for notification in its reporting year.

Test Policy in Detail

The filing states, in its own note on test policy, that Williams is truly test optional, that it is entirely up to the applicant whether to submit SAT or ACT results, and that scores are truly optional. Scores are considered if submitted, are not used for academic advising, and the latest date by which scores must be received for fall-term admission in that filing is January 12. An applicant who does not submit scores is reviewed on the rest of the file: transcript and course selection, grades, letters of recommendation, essays, achievements, talents, and life experiences. Neither choice is described as penalized, and the Fall 2025 profile, in which a majority submitted no score on either test, shows that non-submission is a normal outcome. Scores that are submitted are considered alongside the same material, and the published ranges describe enrolled submitters only.

Cost and Financial Aid

The official tuition page gives 2026-2027 comprehensive fees of: tuition $76,300; housing $9,830; meals $9,490; activities and residential house fees $340; for a total without study away of $95,960, and $97,460 with the study away fee of $1,500. The estimated cost of books is $1,000, and Williams covers books for each student on financial aid regardless of the total amount. On aid, the same page states that Williams meets 100% of demonstrated need with no loans and no work-study expectations in its packages, and that it considers the true cost of participation, not just attendance. It offers free tuition to students whose families earn $200,000 or less, with typical assets, and notes that many of those families also receive aid well beyond tuition. Financial aid deadlines are November 15 for Early Decision, January 4 for Regular Decision, and March 3 for transfer applicants. Figures change each year, so recheck them for your enrollment year, and use the Williams cost calculator and financial aid office for a family estimate, not a third-party average.

Transfer, Waitlist, and International Applicants

For Fall 2025, the filing reports 595 transfer applicants, 23 admitted, and 15 enrolled, giving a derived transfer acceptance rate of 3.87%, lower than the first-year rate for the Class of 2030. Transfer students apply for fall enrollment only. The catalog states that students with one year or more of college credit completed or in process should apply as transfers, while students with less than one year of college credit are encouraged to apply as first-year students, and that Williams students must fulfill a two-year residency requirement, so transfer students are granted a maximum of two years of credit. The first-year rate should never be used as a proxy for the transfer rate.

For Fall 2025 admissions, the filing reports 2,193 qualified applicants offered a waitlist place, 850 who accepted a place, and 25 admitted from the waitlist, giving a derived rate of 2.94% among those who accepted a place. The waitlist is not ranked. Outcomes swing with enrollment needs, because the number admitted depends on how many admitted students enroll, which is not known until replies arrive. A waitlist place is therefore a possibility, not a probability.

The catalog states that Williams receives over 3,000 international applications each year, from more than 100 countries, and that international students make up nine percent of the student body. International applicants follow the same procedures as United States citizens and are not required to submit additional forms or testing. Students whose first language or language of academic instruction is not English must document English proficiency, but there is no one required examination, and while TOEFL or IELTS results are reviewed, they are not requirements for admission. No separate international acceptance rate is stated here, because none of the Williams sources opened for this draft publishes one.

Is Williams Hard to Get Into, and How Should You Read Selectivity?

On its own published counts, the short answer is yes, in the specific sense that far more students apply than can be offered a place. About 7 to 9 offers per 100 applicants, sustained across the three most recent cycles, places Williams among the most selective colleges in the United States by offer rate. That is a description of the pool, not a judgment about any individual, and it should be read alongside the profile facts above: most enrolled students who submitted rank were in the top tenth of their class, and score ranges for enrolled submitters sit near the top of the SAT and ACT scales.

Size also matters. Williams is a small college, with a target first-year class of 560 students for the Class of 2030 and 2,101 undergraduates in total in Fall 2025, according to its filing. A college enrolling about 560 first-year students will always have a lower acceptance rate than a much larger university enrolling several thousand, even with similar application totals, simply because the number of places is smaller. That arithmetic does not make the smaller college better or worse; it makes the rate partly a function of scale. For planning, a low offer rate means a strong application is necessary but not sufficient, because many strong applications compete for few places. Building a balanced list, including colleges with a range of offer rates, is a sensible response to uncertainty, and cost and fit should be weighed alongside selectivity from the start.

Common Mistakes When Reading the Rate

Several mistakes recur in coverage of this topic. The first is mixing cycles: quoting an 8.25% figure from the Class of 2028 cycle as if it were the current rate, when the Class of 2030 rate is 7.48%. The second is mixing offers with enrollment: dividing an enrolled class of about 560 by total applicants and calling the result an acceptance rate, when the rate divides offers, not enrollment, by applicants. The third is mixing routes: quoting the Early Decision rate of about 25% as if it were the overall rate, or quoting the overall rate as if it described Regular Decision, when the Regular Decision rate for the Class of 2030 was 6.32%. The fourth is treating score ranges as cutoffs: reading a 25th percentile SAT score of 1490 as a minimum, when a quarter of enrolled submitters scored at or below that point, and when most enrolled students submitted no score at all. The fifth is quoting a third-party average grade point average or acceptance rate without checking the class and source behind it. In each case, the remedy is the same: ask for the class, ask for the counts, and check whether the figure comes from Williams itself.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Williams College acceptance rate? The latest rate here is 7.48% for the Class of 2030 (1,239 offers from 16,557 applicants; the Record reports it as 7.4%). For the Class of 2029 it is 8.61% (1,336 from 15,520), and for the Class of 2028 the College Board reports 8.25% (1,272 from 15,409).

Is the Williams acceptance rate really 7%? Rounded to a whole number, yes, the Class of 2030 rate rounds to about 7%. More precisely it is 7.48%, and the Record reports it as 7.4%. Always ask which class a quoted figure describes before comparing it with another figure.

What is the Williams Early Decision acceptance rate? For the Class of 2030, the derived rate is 25.22% (258 offers from 1,023 applications, as compiled from Common Data Set data). For the Fall 2025 entering class it is 26.56% (256 admits from 964 applications). Early Decision is binding, so these rates should not be read as an easier route for an undecided applicant.

What is the Williams Regular Decision acceptance rate? For the Class of 2030, the derived rate is 6.32% (981 offers from 15,534 applicants). That is the rate most first-year applicants will actually face, because most applicants apply under Regular Decision.

How many students applied to Williams for the Class of 2030? Williams received 16,557 applications, including a record 15,534 Regular Decision applications, and offered admission to 1,239 students. The target first-year class size was 560, an expectation at announcement time, not a final enrollment count.

Does Williams require SAT or ACT scores? No. Williams is truly test optional, according to its Common Data Set 2025-2026 filing. In Fall 2025, 43% of enrolled first-year students submitted SAT scores and 18% submitted ACT scores, so most submitted no score on either test.

What SAT and ACT scores do Williams students have? For enrolled Fall 2025 submitters, the middle 50% SAT composite range was 1490 to 1550, and the ACT composite range was 33 to 35. These ranges describe enrolled submitters only and are not cutoffs.

What are the Williams application deadlines? On the current official first-year page, Early Decision is due November 15, with a decision by December 14, and Regular Decision is due January 4, with an answer by April 1 and a reply by May 1. The fee is $65, with a waiver available. Recheck the official page for your cycle.

What is the Williams transfer acceptance rate? For Fall 2025, the derived rate is 3.87% (23 admitted from 595 applicants, with 15 enrolled). Transfer applicants apply for fall enrollment only, with a catalog deadline of March 3.

What are my chances of getting off the Williams waitlist? For Fall 2025, 25 students were admitted from 850 who accepted a waitlist place, giving a derived rate of 2.94% among those who accepted a place. The waitlist is not ranked, so treat a place as a possibility, not a likelihood.

Does the acceptance rate tell me whether I will get in? No. It describes a past applicant pool as a whole. It does not predict any individual outcome, because review is holistic and considers the full application.

Where can I check the latest Williams figures myself? Start with Williams own publications: its first-year application page, its tuition and aid page, its catalog admission page, and its Common Data Set filings, together with the Williams Record report for the most recent cycle. When you read any other page, check that it names the entering class and cites a Williams source for its counts.

Keep reading: High School Resume Examples: Four Worked Examples You Can Adapt

Sources & references

  • Williams College, "First-Year," Admission and Aid, https://www.williams.edu/admission-aid/how-to-apply/first-year/ (Early Decision and Regular Decision deadlines and decision dates, application routes and checklist, application fee and waiver, holistic review process, admission office contact details).
  • Williams College, "Tuition and Aid," Admission and Aid, https://www.williams.edu/admission-aid/tuition-aid/ (2026-2027 comprehensive fees, financial aid deadlines, 100% of demonstrated need met with no loans and no work-study expectation, free tuition for families earning $200,000 or less with typical assets, books covered for students on aid).
  • Williams College Catalog, "Admission," https://catalog.williams.edu/admission/ (holistic review, academic record as the most important factor, four-year subject sequences for competitive candidates, Early Decision and Regular Decision terms, transfer rules and deadlines, international application volume and share, English proficiency policy).
  • Williams College, "Common Data Set 2025-2026," April 2026 filing, official Williams PDF at https://www.williams.edu/institutional-research/files/2026/04/Williams-CDS-2025-2026-V2.pdf, via https://www.williams.edu/institutional-research/common-data-set/, also consulted as a mirrored copy at https://api.collegedata.fyi/storage/v1/object/public/sources/williams-college/2025-26/f0616d7cb427899a3963498bceb30af50ebbff454f92bd1dd84276b3e430c996.pdf (Fall 2025 first-year counts, Early Decision counts, waitlist counts, transfer counts, test submission shares and score ranges, class rank shares, test optional policy note, application fee, deadlines, and enrollment totals; the filing states its institutional source page as https://www.williams.edu/institutional-research/common-data-set/).
  • The Williams Record, "College admits record-low 7.4 percent of applicants to Class of 2030," https://williamsrecord.com/472340/news/college-admits-record-low-7-4-percent-of-applicants-to-class-of-2030/ (Class of 2030 Regular Decision offers and applications, Early Decision offers, QuestBridge matches, waitlist and denial counts, target class size of 560, reply date of May 1, previous record low in the 2023-2024 cycle).
  • The Williams Record, "College admits 25.2 percent of early decision applicants to Class of 2030," https://williamsrecord.com/471370/news/college-admits-25-2-percent-of-early-decision-applicants-to-class-of-2030/ (Class of 2030 Early Decision offers and applications, disposition counts, prior-year rate).
  • College Board BigFuture, "Williams College Admissions," https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/colleges/williams-college/admissions (Class of 2028 cohort: 8.25% acceptance rate, 15,409 applicants, 1,272 admitted, 547 enrolled, application fee, deadlines, and application types; profile based mainly on information supplied by the college).
  • AdmissionSight, "Williams Acceptance Rate: Class of 2030 Admissions Statistics," https://admissionsight.com/williams-acceptance-rate/ (secondary compilation from Williams Common Data Set data, used only for the multi-year trend table, the Class of 2030 Early Decision application count of 1,023, and the Class of 2030 Regular Decision rate cross-check; its Regular Decision figures are stated on that page to be estimates derived by subtracting Early Decision data from overall totals).

Emma Hudson

Editor of Amberaisle — clear, thoughtful explainers for curious readers. More about the editor →