<p>The first interview I had this year was a Yale interview and I didn't prepare much for it. My interview was going pretty well until my interviewer asked me this question-</p>
<p>" The applicant pool applying to Yale is really competitive with Yale rejecting a lot of really strong applicants. Why should we select you?"</p>
<p>I couldn't get a single solid and convincing answer to this question. I feel that the Yale applicant pool is so competitive that my achievements would only sound average. Hence, I could not give my interviewer a good answer. </p>
<p>I am assuming that a majority of the applicants are like me (good applicants but nothing spectacular by Yale's standard). Hence, I was wondering how did you guys answered/will answer this particular question.</p>
<p>If you get this question, I suggest you speak positively about what you have to contribute to campus life–don’t try too hard to say that you’re unique.</p>
<p>I had the exact same problem with almost the exact same question. Mine was worded like this:
“Yale accepts about 1 out of every 5 students that apply - or even less than that. What makes you better than those other 4 students?” I ended up stammering through it, knowing that I was nothing special compared to the majority of applicants to Yale. I think I talked about how my passion for music could contribute to campus life [even though I knew that most of the musicians are better than me anyways - go figure]
Actually…I would’ve done a lot better with that question if I had never gotten on CC and seen all the amazing things that people here do :p</p>
<p>Aw! (jumping in here with my first post, though I’ve been following fellow Yale '14 applicants here for several months now - hello all!) That was actually a question I thought about a lot, and kind of hoped I’d be asked (I wasn’t).</p>
<p>On paper, I’m not that special. All my numbers are fine, I know I’m smart enough to be there, I haven’t got especial “achievements” going for me. My high school history isn’t anything to either get me in or get me kicked out – just enough, it looks like, to have me deferred. And yeah, that goes for most of us. Once you’ve got the stats more or less, it’s kind of a toss-up.</p>
<p>I suspect Yale admissions wants real people - real, interesting, passionate, creative, unusual or not-up-for-typical, cool kids who’ll be involved and be interested and lalala, etc., we know this stuff backwards and forwards now. That’s so hard to get through on paper, and I could be totally completely wrong here, but my guess is that those who do can often be the ones on the luckier side of that toss-up. My hope was that the question you got would be the easiest way to put that totally human part of me forward in the interview. Kind of a chance to be like, “I’m not that special, but look, I’m kind of awesome because of who I am as a person in this and this way, and if you knew me just a few minutes longer, Yale, you’d see you’d be all over that” – honestly and without pretentiousness.</p>
<p>I second Hunt’s advice. Give a succinct and truthful answer (I’m sure there must have been some reason why you chose to apply to Yale in the first place). I would proceed to discuss the pointlessness and subjectivity of that question and how my answer would convince some admissions officers that I should be the one chosen among the five while others will find it reason enough to eliminate me and pick another candidate. A valuable skill in interviews (college or otherwise) is the ability to understand the intent of a question and its relevance in the conversation.</p>