The College offered admission to 1,038 applicants on March 21 through the regular decision process. The total acceptance rate for the 2024-2025 admission cycle, including both early and regular decision, was 8.5 percent — a slight increase from last year’s record-low 7.5 percent acceptance rate.
Valerie Jarrett, a former senior advisor to President Barack Obama, will deliver the 2025 commencement address on June 8. The day before, Esther Duflo, a Nobel laureate and MIT professor of economics will deliver the College’s baccalaureate address.
The College launched the CARE Team, a committee that directs students identified through referrals as needing additional support to available campus resources, this academic year.
The College’s EphVentures programs have seen a decrease in applications for orientation leader positions, according to their student directors. The programs faced a 15 percent budget cut and were shortened by a day in 2023, which leaders said diminished their ability to run the programs effectively.
Willy2Go, a new student-run food delivery service, launched last Saturday night. For its debut, six student drivers brought 30 deliveries from the McDonald’s in North Adams to dorms from 8 p.m. until 2:30 a.m. on Sunday.
A page on the College’s website that outlined the Theme/Affinity/Program/Special Interest (TAPSI) housing program was taken down during the week of Feb. 14. Dean of the College Gretchen Long said that the College is not planning any changes to the program, but that senior staff decided to take down the page following the Department of Education’s Feb. 14 Dear Colleague letter.
Professor and Chair of Chemistry Thomas Smith ’88 will serve as the next director of the Williams-Exeter Programme at Oxford (WEPO), President Maud S. Mandel announced in an all-campus email last Friday. He will succeed Professor of Political Science Sam Crane, who has held the position since July 2024.
David Baron ’25 and Asa Quasney Wardat ’25 have won the Gates Cambridge Scholarship, which fully funds postgraduate studies at the University of Cambridge. They are two of the 25 Gates Cambridge scholars from the United States this year.
International Student Services (ISS) hosted its ninth annual “Know Your Rights” workshop on March 5, in partnership with the Berkshire Immigrant Center (BIC). During the workshop, BIC staff spoke with students and community members about immigrants’ rights. This year’s workshop was held amid an increasingly adverse environment for immigrants following President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The Department of Education's deadline to dismantle race-based programming passed on Feb. 28, but College administrators declined to specify how the College might change campus programming in response.
