Washington and Lee University is a private liberal arts university in Lexington, Virginia. W&L has deep roots in the south, but also a mission towards the future. They are especially well-known for a distinctive academic calendar that includes two 12-week terms and one four-week spring term that is focused on immersive study through a single class, often off-campus or abroad. The acceptance rate is about 14%, and they heavily prioritize Early Decision applicants. Well over 50% of the Class of 2028 was admitted in the ED cycle.
If you are considering applying to W&L, you should be taking the hardest courses that you have access to, as over 90% of accepted students have taken advanced coursework, and don’t skimp on the courses that aren’t your favorites. Things like language, science labs, and high level math, like calculus, are not required — but are expected — of strong applicants.
W&L is also test-optional, meaning that you aren’t required to submit SAT or ACT scores to be considered for admission. A large number of applicants have been accepted without submitting scores, 43% for the class of 2028. However, strong scores strengthen an otherwise impressive application, increasing your chance of admission. A strong SAT is over 1500, and a strong ACT is over 34. If you can’t reach these numbers on either test, we council our students not to submit their scores to W&L. They have such a strong track record of accepted students without scores that there is no reason to potentially weaken your application with sub-par scores.
This post is about supplements, though. For W&L, your supplements are a crucial piece of showing who you are and how you’ll fit into — and add to — the W&L community. They are looking for students who will be committed to the student-run Honor Code and embrace the unique academic calendar. These supplements are key piece of making your case for being a perfect fit. Below, we break them down.
Getting into a top school requires top strategy. Learn more.
Washington & Lee wants to get to know you. However, they have also made the supplement optional. The choice to make it optional isn’t because you can get into W&L without doing the supplement — you really can’t. Rather, it is because making the supplement optional drives up the number of applications that are submitted and subsequently reduces the acceptance rate, increasing the exclusivity of the school. The good news is that this suggests that doing the supplement increases your chances admission to W&L. You don’t just want to answer the questions, though, you want to knock them out of the park.
SUPPLEMENT 1
There are over 8,200 accredited colleges and universities in the U.S. alone. You have chosen to apply to Washington and Lee University. Please describe how you have familiarized yourself with W&L and what aspects of its community are most exciting to you. (250 words)
This is a key question, because it’s all about that “perfect fit” we were talking about a moment ago. They want to know that you know Washington & Lee, but listing what you like about the school isn’t the best approach. Neither is simply talking about a visit or, worse, scrolling through their website. Instead, you want to write a compelling story that shows how you are a W&L student even before you’ve been accepted. Then, connect this story directly to W&L through specifics about the school that make you excited about attending, especially as relate to curriculum and culture. Remember, this is college. So, yes, you should talk about academics in this supplement.
To give you an example about how you take a personal story and link it to Washington & Lee, maybe you serve on your school student government and have led an initiative to create clear rules for AI use in school and on homework. You could write about the challenge of creating community buy-in, when it’s so easy to just use AI and then lie about it, but how you rallied your peers around shared principles and values. You would then connect this to the W&L Honor System, and how you are attracted to a student run Honor Code that trusts students with immense responsibility while matching that trust with real consequences for those who don’t rise to the bar set by their peers.
From there, you could write about someday working on a take-home exam for a course related to your prospective major. Give details about the major that attract you to the program that show you understand the program and can see yourself thriving there.
SUPPLEMENT 2
For the second supplement, you have options. There are four prompts to pick from, and you only respond to one. The second choice you have to make is how you respond. W&L allows students to respond to the second supplement with either a 250-word (or less) response or a max 2-minute video.
Our default is the writing, as we love the ability to build a story that the reader can immerse themselves in without thinking about your facial expressions, background, or tone of voice — but when does a video make more sense than the written word? Well, you can technically say more in a video than in a 250-word supplement. That doesn’t mean that what you will say will mean more, or be more understood by the admissions officials. The best time to do a video, then, is if you have significant experience making videos and talking on camera, like through being the school news anchor, you are able to create a space for filming that is simple and free from visual distractions, and you can spotlight something in the video that directly responds to the prompt.
Below, we’re going to focus on the written approach, but all of this can be reinterpreted for videos. For example, in option one you could talk about milking your cow — or you could do it on camera. That’d be pretty cool.
Option 1: 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?
This is a great prompt because it lets you show yourself outside of not just the classroom, but outside of school commitments entirely. It allows for the idea that you are more than a transcript or other measure of academic accomplishment, and instead a fully formed human with a diversity of experiences and responsibilities — which you are.
The key is not to pick your most ‘impressive’ commitment, responsibility, or accomplishment, but the one that you feel most deeply about and that has shaped you most strongly. You may have won a robotics award, but making a cardboard ‘robot’ with your sibling when you watch her after school is actually a more powerful story. Sure, there may be a way to mention the award in there too, but that won’t be the point of your short essay. Walking the dog, working as a lifeguard, or shelving books in your town’s library is, truly, more meaningful than what you may have thought would be the biggest ‘gold star’ on your application.
Option 2: 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 prompt can be a bit of a trap. It attracts a specific group of students — those who see themselves as representative of diversity in some way — and risks pigeonholing those applicants into that identity. If you could answer two of these prompts, that would be a different matter. You’d get to show two sides of yourself. But since you only get to pick one, we’re hesitant to encourage students towards this one. You are going to college to be a student, not a statistic, and the other options, especially options 1 and 3, offer better opportunities to show who you truly are beyond demographics.
If you do pick this prompt, you need to tell a story that is bigger than skin color, culture, or socioeconomics. Those can be part of it, but shouldn’t be the whole thing. You also need to make sure you aren’t positioning yourself as a victim, but as an empowered leader who creates opportunities for others to grow and thrive.
Option 3: Reveal to us how your curious mind works by sharing something you spend considerable time thinking or learning about.
This is a very exciting prompt! If you aren’t buzzing with excitement already, let us tell you why. This prompt lets you be your full, creative, academic, curious, and fun self. It lets you have a good time, while also showing how enthusiastic you are about learning. What makes this prompt work best for applicants is leaning into just that. Tell a story that reveals how you think, just like they ask, by being super specific.
For some reason, we tend to talk about octopuses when it comes to prompts like this. None of us are biologists, so let’s blame the documentary My Octopus Teacher. You could write a response that opens with one very specific fact about an octopus. Something super zoomed in that you only know because you have been obsessing about octopuses, like maybe a detail of how the have a massive brain that stretches into their arms and their arms can even have different ‘personalities.’ Then you use that as a way to go into different sides of yourself, and embracing the idea that you can have diverse interests that may seem to clash at times, but if they are all you then they, by definition, all work together. Such a supplement could touch on science and psychology, while also illuminating areas of interest that may not appear on the application otherwise.
Option 4: 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.
This prompt isn’t the worst, but it also isn’t the best. Call us judge-y, but we know a student hasn’t been challenged to truly explore who they are when they think the most interesting thing that they have to write about is their name. For most students, their name is something they were given at birth. Even nicknames, often, originate pre-birth or from childhood silliness that is fundamentally irrelevant to the adult you are becoming. Now, there are exceptions to this. Sometimes, a student has chosen the name they go by. That can be a powerful defining characteristic, but we’re not convinced that it helps make the case for you as a student as Washington & Lee.
So, we avoid this prompt with our students except in very rare circumstances. Instead, focus on who you are as a learner, a leader, or both.
The Washington & Lee supplement isn’t onerously long, but it does take some careful consideration and plenty of drafting time. Make sure to give yourself room to brainstorm and explore different ideas before cementing your approach. And if it isn’t fun to write, you probably aren’t doing it right.
We help our students make the most of every supplement, leading to exceptional acceptances. Learn more.