<p>It might be a little early, but Ive noticed a lot of people are already starting/working/finishing their applications. Ive always been more of a wanderer on this site, but since were the next generation- why not start collaborating now? I think I fell in love with Yale through college videos. Thats probably not the most reliable source, but the more Ive researched it the more wonderful it seems. Im pretty sure now Im applying for SCEA in November, even though my chances are pretty slim. Who else is in potential 2014 crowd here?</p>
<p>me! me! me! i’m almost for sure doing scea.</p>
<p>i don’t know how much of a chance i have (mid 2200 SAT–second attempt’s CR score seemed like a freak accident struck, and overall, unfortunately, it barely showed improvement–and a low 3.8 GPA albeit at a super tough private school). i’m hoping they love the artistic type, though, because if i ever get in that’ll probably be why.</p>
<p>haha, you’re better qualified than me. I’m taking the june 6 SAT. Not taking the SATs earlier was probably one of the worst decisions of my life- if I screw this one up then I can basically kiss Yale goodbye, or applying to SCEA anyway. Plus my activites are all over the place, which doesn’t really look that good despite leadership positions. When you say artistic, do you mean in drawing and sculture and concrete art- or like theatre? I think Yale’s pretty interested in that area</p>
<p>i don’t think you really need to be concentrated in one area. like if i had to categorize my activities, i’d group them into arts, athletics, and then international/culture-related thing clubs. and by arts i mean the fine arts–there’s sort of a discussion going around this board about whether or not artists are “recruited” in the sense of an athlete but not actually given the same large benefit. i really do hope they are.</p>
<p>but about scea, from my experience from classmates and these boards, the people who i see get in scea are mainly URMs, recruited athletes, and the stellar applicants. by stellar the yale admissions committee directly see that they can offer something (hopefully art skills! lol). at least that’s what happened at my school this year. the kid that got in scea was stellar in the political field (some pretty impressive ECs centered around it, he’s sort of known for that type of thing) and then the a few other well-rounded kids were deferred then accepted.</p>
<p>In that case I’m crossing my fingers for a deferral? Who knows the process- I’ve looked through the SCEA2013 stats and some of them are just talented in areas that are not related to sports or ethnics, though a lot of them RA/URM/etcetc. If you’re amazing in art I’m sure they’ll definetly look into that. I’ve got a lot of theatre experiance, but then again Yale probably gets tons of applicants who’ve been in major productions. I’m just hoping drama paired with well-rounded stats will push me over the line.</p>
<p>I got too excited when I got the perspective student letter from them some weeks ago; eventhough I’ve heard basically everyone gets them. But hey, it was still a letter from Yale =D …I think I read it like 5 times over</p>
<p>I think I’m doing SCEA, though I’d likely be deferred. 34 ACT, 4.0 UW, 8 AP classes, top performances in a bunch of Economics competitions, and a boatload of political involvement. Ultimately though, I’m not a valedictorian, not a URM, not an RA, and so I’m likely out of luck. But I’m trying!</p>
<p>I live 20 minutes away from Yale (I absolutely am in love with Yale. No where else comes close at all.) and I’m definitely going to apply for SCEA. Hooray for double legacy!</p>
<p>I’m still deciding between Yale or Stanford SCEA, though I’m leaning towards Yale since I’ve heard of of all the deferrals Stanford has given out. Any advice anyone has, considering I’ve visited Stanford but haven’t yet seen Yale (impossible for me to get there from the west coast)? I’m just brainstorming essay ideas now… sigh next year will be hell</p>
<p>MEEEEEEEEEEEE.</p>
<p>I’m super excited. hahah. No joke. When I got that Yale letter for prospective students, I freaked out…even though it’s no big deal. I keep it on my desk for motivation. hahah. Oh boy. I’m a pretty average applicant, mid 2200s SATs (retaking in Oct), decent ECs, good grades. Let’s hope we kick some butt on those essays! </p>
<p>I’m 99.99% sure…unless something happens unexpectedly? </p>
<p>Hey. Question. When are yall starting those application essays? As soon as they’re posted July 1st? Or have you guys already started? …or are you waiting until school starts again?
annnnd. When are you guys getting recommendations from teachers? I think I should start doing that next week since APs are over and school’s about to be out. Just to give them a heads up…even if they don’t start until next year. Or should I wait until next year so I don’t seem like I"m rushing them…?</p>
<p>Thanks guys!
ahhhh this is so exciting.</p>
<p>Don’t forget to take subject tests along with the original SAT.</p>
<p>I’m most likely applying scea too… good luck to everyone</p>
<p>Hey, we’ve got future 2014 students here. it’s gonna be a long road until dec 15 xD </p>
<p>@dirdir, same here. I’ve visited Stanford,being on the west coast, it was gorgeous but I don’t think I’m even going to apply there. I’m not a very math/sciency person and it was utter stanford slaugher this year. we had people get into harvard and princeton that got outright rejected from stanford.</p>
<p>Smile: we just had a college project at school that required three basic essays, so I’ve got three really rough drafts. I’m probably rewriting them anyway. I don’t know if Yale is the same, but with the Harvard app they give you a couple choices and then the option of picking your own subject- so it’s pretty much out there.</p>
<p>I haven’t started on any SATs; but I’m taking the one on June6 and then doing the subjects in november, which is the last testing date for scea. which basically means I don’t get to retake anything. I’ve been studying like crazy but it doesn’t seem to do any good, I’m not improving. How else do you study for the SATs besides taking practice tests?</p>
<p>Oh, and Question: did you guys generally do better or worse on the real test compared to the practice tests?</p>
<p>do we really have to wait for yale to release its essays? i mean, they have the “why yale?” one, and their supplement was something like write whatever you want, right? and then the commonapp essay has the same options every year. i’m not sure about other colleges, though.</p>
<p>You should take the subject tests in October, not November. As for the practice tests, I scored a best score of 2230 on my practice tests, and then received a 2350 on the real test. They should help you get acquainted with the questions and get a general sense of your score range, but the they do not portend your exact score because they cannot replicate the exact conditions of taking a real test. Even if you try to replicate such conditions, you’ll find you can’t, because there is no way you can make the practice test count the same as a real test in your mind. Therefore, just take the tests, read prep books if you are really concerned (go to the SAT prep subforum if you want better advice on this), and then take the test. What score ranges are you talking about? Is it 1900-2000, or 2200-2300?</p>
<p>We really don’t need to wait for Yale to release essay questions; you can start now, and if their question is a little different, you can just rearrange/recycle your previously written essay(s). :]
I have a giant felt Yale banner hanging about my bed for motivation lol. It’s helpful when you’re working late into the night and wondering “whyyy I am doing this?” haha.</p>
<p>My random question:
I had this view that Yale SCEA is harder than Stanford Early Action.
Was I wrong in this? or are math/science people better-chanced for Stanford EA?</p>
<p>These are basically two colleges that the TOP kids will apply, if they apply early…
because they don’t want to jeopardize RD by applying ED. So curious about those two schools.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>^ I think that math/science people have better chances at Yale. Stanford is known as like a science/math/engineering mecca, thus all those people apply there. Yale is known as a more humanities focused place, so I think a <em>slight</em> edge might be given to those who show talent (read: Ivy League quality talent) in the sciences.</p>
<p>Additionally, Stanford and Yale had equitable admit rates for both the SCEA and RD rounds.</p>
<p>I thought of that too actually.
And this seems weird, because you can actually make an internal transfer as well… to Economics or to International Relations at Yale per se… which is like the mecca…</p>
<p>In any way, I guess the notion of HYP has been removed in terms of the difficulty of Early Action between Yale and Stanford, I guess.</p>
<p>I usually do better on the actual test than the practice test. Maybe it’s because the practice tests are usually a little bit harder and I concentrate SO MUCH better during the actual test. I have 2 more SAT IIs (Lit and Chem…ahh) in June and a retake of the SAT in Oct and then hopefully I’ll be done.</p>
<p>Yeah, I think I’m gonna start on some of the basic essays after my SAT IIs. Like the CommonApp ones and ones that can be used for almost every school. I’m doing my Why Yale and Why___? essays after I do research on that school. </p>
<p>Yale and Stanford…they’re both extremely hard to get into but it seems like Yale deferred more people while Stanford rejected more. You never know exactly what they’re looking for though so it’s pretty hard to decide. Just go with the one you like better.</p>
<p>When are you guys getting recommendations from teachers??</p>
<p>I was in your shoes last year. I spent most of late summer deciding between doing SCEA at Yale or Stanford, or EA at MIT/Chicago. </p>
<p>A couple of factors specific to me that worked into my decision to apply to Yale early include my location (mid-atlantic) and my academic goals (double major in applied mathematics and something humanities-related). I should also mention that my dad’s an alumnus of Stanford, so that was also taken into consideration.</p>
<p>Stanford is an amazing school and I fell in love with it during one of my dad’s recruiting trips to campus. As his daughter, I got to see some of the perks of being at Stanford. I attended the birthday party of a pretty famous applied mathematician and heard a number of professionals speak. I got to talk one-on-one with professors in my future field and question them about both the school and the department. I also got to hang out with one of my dad’s friends’ children. I really had a good time there, but it also left something to be desired.</p>
<p>That being said, my visit wasn’t a big factor in deciding where I applied early. Stanford is somewhat known for (1) not accepting too many “top” applicants from the northeast (2) being somewhat random in its admissions. I looked at the results of my friends from the previous year. One of my friends who was the valedictorian at a very well-known, well-off school who was captain of two varsity sports, had great sat scores, participated in a very “prestigious” summer program, and was an ISEF finalist got flat-out rejected during the early round. Another one of my friends from my school who was also a two-sport varsity athlete, with national music awards and legacy status was deferred and then rejected. This really scared me off, as I felt that I didn’t have much to offer Stanford.</p>
<p>Then came the MIT/Chicago decision. This was actually a lot easier after visiting MIT. Although I had heard a lot about the vibrant social life and athletic atmosphere from friends who were attending, my visit was somewhat less-than-stellar. I didn’t really like the urban campus that was lacking in what I considered uniform architecture and MIT’s humanities and social sciences departments seemed more lacking than it seemed from my friends (excepting economics and linguistics, of course). </p>
<p>Yale wasn’t even on my original list of schools I was considering last April. It was a “humanities” school and I am still very much an applied math girl. I only visited it as it was on my way to Brown and I had a day to waste on the way there. I fell in love during my visit. I loved the environment, the community, and everything New Haven had to offer. My friends assured me that its math, science, and engineering departments weren’t lacking by most standards (and that any differences were negligible at the undergraduate level). In short, I really fell in love.</p>
<p>I ended up applying to Yale early- even though it had been 10 years since someone from my otherwise pretty awesome (if I do say so myself) high school had gone there- because I really loved it there. I was accepted into Yale early, and left in the two other applications I had turned in before December 15 (Harvard and Stanford) and applied to my other dream school, Princeton. MIT didn’t even end up on my list, because I knew I really liked Yale more and there was no chance I would’ve attended MIT over Yale. </p>
<p>I ended being rejected from Stanford and waitlisted at Harvard. I’m really not bitter about either of these decisions. In fact, I’m pretty happy they happened. After making my decision to apply to Yale early and talking with some of my close friends who are Stanford '12, I realized the substantial cultural differences between the two schools. Of course, they are both top-top institutions with more similarities than differences, but there is still a clear cultural difference. Stanford is much more laid back than Yale, and has a much more central athletic culture. There also seems to be more self-segregation by both ethnicity and clique. Being who I am, I wouldn’t be comfortable there, and had I gotten in, I might have been pressured into going. The same goes for Harvard. I didn’t have too great of a visit last spring, but was pushed into applying by my parents who just wanted to see “if I could get in”. </p>
<p>I ended up with the difficult decision between my two top choices, which is the best outcome I could’ve had. Both schools offer a lot of what I was looking for in a college. While Princeton had been a dream since when I knew what college was, Yale was my new love. I spent April visiting (twice at each school) and talking with both current students and alumni, and in the end, decided to enroll at Yale because it just felt right. I can’t really explain my decision much more than that.</p>
<p>All in all, the college admissions and decisions process really worked out for me in that I really got to think about what I wanted in a college and in life, and that I ended up at my real dream school.</p>
<p>I urge all of you rising seniors to seriously consider what you are looking for in a college. I have to admit that my final list wasn’t really polished to the effect it should have been (it was a selection of 15 schools from the nation’s top 25), and that the schools I ended up applying to were more a product of my parents’ wants than mine (btw, I had gotten into a safety school before even sending off my Yale application. Rolling, ftw. You should try it.). </p>
<p>Seriously think about what you want, and use that to narrow down your list. Don’t be afraid to apply to a number of schools in the same caliber to maximize your chances of admissions, but seriously be ready to attend each and every school you apply to. Stanford and Yale are two different schools with distinct cultures, and while strategic reasons may influence your decision, they shouldn’t be the deciding factor.</p>
<p>As for recommendations— I gave my teachers a heads-up in June to make sure they would be able and willing to write me recommendations (both had written them for me before for summer programs) and then gave them my “info-sheet” and envelopes in September. If they are junior year teachers and you have a definite college list, giving them the information in June might help them prioritize YOUR recommendation and if they write it then, they will have a clearer memory of your participation in their class, but if you’re not ready, I don’t think it’s a big deal.</p>