What is the acceptance rate for Yale when you apply ED?
Yale has single choice early action, not early decision. Last year’s early stats are included in a news article.
https://news.yale.edu/2017/12/14/842-early-action-applicants-admitted-class-2022
Keep in mind: About 180 of those SCEA admits last year were recruited athletes. And 52 admitted students were from the QuestBridge National College Match program. So, that means 610 students gained admission to Yale SCEA who were NOT recruited athletes or QuestBridge applicants. Doing the math, (5,733 divided by 610), that means Yale had a 9.4% SCEA admit rate, outside of recruited athletes and QuestBridge applicants. Yale doesn’t breakdown the number of URM’s admitted SCEA, nor do they provide the number of “development cases” admitted, so my guess is that Yale had about a 6% to 7% SCEA admit rate for unhooked students – which is about the same (6.23%) as the RD acceptance rate. And that’s what Yale Admissions has said in the past: The SCEA and RD acceptance rates are about the same!
Doesn’t the 6.23% RD acceptance rate also include some hooked candidates (for instance, URM’s who might have applied to another Ivy SCEA)? The RD-unhooked accept rate will be lower than that.
However, playing with Class of '22 numbers a bit, I’m getting the same results as @gibby for the early-round unhooked admit rate: 6% on the low end, and, probably 7.5% on the upper (maybe higher but that’s pushing it). It really depends on the mix of URMs/Development in both the applicant and the admitted pools. It’s easy to set up a spreadsheet and plug in estimates, but the result is only as good as the inputs and really don’t gauge individual chances, only percentages admitted. Also, if the Class of '23 early applicant pool has increased, then this range can easily shift down.
^ One comment to #3: this analysis only looks at the rate for SCEA, not your total chances of getting in assuming you applied SCEA. Of course a good number are deferred to regular pool, and some of those get in that way.
I suspect that if we could get perfect information, the apples to apples comparison adjusting for hooks will show a higher admit for EA because the applicant pool is likely stronger in the EA round.
EA round is always about fulfilling institutional priorities—filling those hard to fill buckets: RA, special talents, development and etc. But strong unhooked still have better chance IMHO. Its probably true that hooked percentage is much higher in EA than RD, if Yale has similar practice to Harvard’s which was revealed in the court documents.
Yale’s 2022 admission stats:
EA 14.7%, RD 4.2% and overall 6.3%.
If 7.5% for unhooked in EA and 4% in RD, EA still doubles the chance.
Another advantage could also be that for EA admits they won’t be subjected to the brutal one month long lopping process at the end of RD to shape the class profile where many admits are yanked out of the admit pool.
When a strong unhooked applies EA, she/he can fill an empty bucket in EA, but that would not be the case in RD if it is already full.
“ACT: 32
SAT II US History: 720
SAT II Lit: 740
My school does not send a GPA but my grades are in the B+/A- range”
Unless the family members you mentioned have donated many millions, Yale is pretty much out of reach.
^^ I agree. Chances in SCEA round = deferral, as Admissions will want to compare the OP to a larger applicant pool.
Is there a way to find out what the acceptance rates are for various ACT scores?
^Yale does not publish, Stanford used to by ranges. More granular for SAT, less so for ACT. https://admission.stanford.edu/apply/selection/profile16.html
The posters above were referring to hooked candidates who are required to apply SCEA. Recruited athletes, Questbridge applicants, and even development applicants must apply in the early round. To a certain extent even legacies must apply early for their legacy status to matter. These categories that have a leg up don’t skew the stats of the RD round.
^ But the RD round obviously includes some who are demographically hooked or a very special talent (prodigy kid, etc.). We know of a few kids in these categories who have gotten into all 8 Ivy’s and they couldn’t apply SCEA to all of them. 100% of these kids had a leg up, so to speak (or, as a Yalie friend mentioned, access to a “side door”). Not sure how many are in the RD round but they are there, nonetheless, and their admit rate isn’t the same as most others in the pool. My earlier post was to point that that SCEA still has a higher admit rate than RD, even for the unhooked. Totally agree with @BKSquared that quality of the pool has a lot to do with it. And of course admit rates don’t really translate into personal changes for admission, but they are an enlightening benchmark.
Unfortunately, Yale (nor any college really) specifically breaks down acceptance rates that way. Instead, Yale provides a more general range with percentages: https://admissions.yale.edu/sites/default/files/class_profile_2022.pdf
It is generally thought that students who have the lowest ACT/SAT scores are recruited athletes in helmet sports (football, ice hockey, lacrosse, etc).
I’m not sure that I would generalize that they all came from helmet sports; personally, I’d exclude at least one of those sports from the statement, and add in a couple of non-helmet sports. But, yes, in the absence of definitive data (which is unlikely to be forthcoming), I would assume that those on the lower end of the spectrum had a major hook
There are also students who took the ACT in lower grades, then concentrated on the SAT (or vice versa). My kid has a very wide ACT/SAT split.
I’m sure these numbers don’t exist, but I wonder what percentage of the deferrals in SCEA are admitted during the RD round. My guess is that it would be low - at most 10%, but I would imagine closer to 5%.
I’m sure they do, but probably not in the public domain.
I would concur.
This from several years back; my guess is that Yale’s numbers are similar to Harvard’s https://www.boston.com/news/education/2015/12/11/harvard-accepts-record-low-percentage-of-early-applicants
Wow! Even bleaker than I imagined! Thanks @gibby!