Hi, I have a gpa of 4.0 but in a community college. I also work full time to support myself since I am poor and living all alone here in the US, so I don’t have any time left to volunteer or participate in any charity work. My dream university is Yale since they have one of the best linguistics programs in the country. My question is: I know my chances are very slim (near impossible), but what do you think? Is there a chance?
Are you an international student? What was your SAT? How long have you been at CC?
No I am not international, I moved to the US a year ago. I intend to finish college next year and we don’t have SATs in my country we follow the French system (which is quite different)…
I transferred this year to Yale with very limited involvement in extra-curriculars because I was working two jobs. As long as you have specific reasons to transfer to Yale, you should be competitive.
“No I am not international, I moved to the US a year ago.”
Are you a US citizen or a US permanent resident?
This has some impact on your ability to get into US schools, because if you are a US citizen or permanent resident you are competing against other US citizens for most of the spots available and most of the financial aid available, but if you are neither then even if you are attending community college in the US nonetheless you are competing with international students (which is tougher).
I don’t know why applicants assume that every student must have volunteering or charity work on their resume. Maybe that was true 10-20 years ago, but it’s been my experience that its not true today – especially if a student is working full time or participating in extracurricular activities such as sports, music or drama that demand a lot of hours in rehearsal or practice. I wouldn’t worry about it.
That said, when you apply to HYP as a transfer student (Yes, Princeton is now accepting transfer students: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/02/03/princeton-university-will-resume-transfer-admissions-first-time-1990), the competition is fierce – so fierce that when you exclude accepted recruited athletes from the mix, the acceptance rate is south of 1%. My guess is that it’s closer to 0.5%. So don’t get your hopes up for any one school and apply broadly. Not sure I can post this link. If it doesn’t come through google “Transfer Acceptance Rates at US News Top 50” and select the first entry: http://■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/stats/transfer-acceptance-rates/#.WULw2TM1Q1g.
Best of luck to you!
Full Disclosure: Neither my son or daughter had any volunteering or community service on their resume when they applied to undergraduate school and they were accepted to top colleges. My daughter just went through the med school applications process and did not have any volunteering or community service on her application – zero, zip, zilch – and she was accepted to a top-10 med school. So, volunteering or community service is not a deal-breaker.
So what do you think can help! I mean I am working my tail off on both work and college but, I don’t know, I still feel like it’s not enough. Yale is a top university, and competition is fierce, so they are asking for something spectacular. The thing is, linguistics is not a top program here in the US, most classes, including top universities, contains 8 or 10 students at best. Do you think this can help get admitted there?
Yale used to have a paragraph on their transfer website, but has since taken it down. I think it was very helpful in answering your questions, so here it is again:
Yale only admits about 20 transfer students per year, so Admissions looks for students who would benefit the most from their resources. So yes, it helps if you want to study something that Yale specializes in, such as linguistics, however you have to have show demonstrated interest in linguistics at your current college. You also need to show how you have maxed-out (or soon will max out) linguistics courses at your current college, and you need to write about how Yale can provide you with linguistics resources not currently available to you at your current college. See: http://ling.yale.edu
Best of luck to you!