<p>Not even national awards, but regional/state ones. I know that some people say "none" on the 'Major Awards' section, but they might have state/regional ones that aren't disclosed.</p>
<p>Thank you!</p>
<p>i put EVERYTHING! even if it was in my school.</p>
<p>Thank you! If I may ask, are you an applicant/ were you accepted?</p>
<p>Not so simple. Plenty of people get rejected w/awards. Plenty get accepted w/o any significant awards. There are only a few of such national prominence that would convey the student any extra note of attention.</p>
<p>Yeah like getting IMO or Field Medal (lol)</p>
<p>I left the entire “Academic Honors” section blank on the common app. You’ll be fine.</p>
<p>Thank you; I appreciate your input!</p>
<p>Yale officers are smart enough to tell between legitimate, impressive awards and ones you BSed (for example, Best Freshman Laugh or something like that. I might also add that Student of the Month and its ilk aren’t uber weighted either)
In short, only write down something if it’s genuinely something that you worked for/spent time on. Otherwise, leave it blank. It won’t help you, but it’ll be better than BSing something</p>
<p>The hierarchy of awards on the common app goes:</p>
<p>International
National
State/Region
School</p>
<p>So you should feel the section up with awards in that order, if all you have is school awards then it may be better to leave it at nothing, as awards only start to matter at the state or regional level. Also awards are not necessary to get into Yale, I didn’t have any national or international awards and still got in.</p>
<p>Yes; I think they are necessary. If you don’t have ANY awards, it can only say one of two things…</p>
<p>1) You’re a nerdling who’s only into academics</p>
<p>or</p>
<p>2) You do have extracurriculars along with academics, but, you’re not good at them…Or maybe you ARE good at them, but admissions officers can’t know for sure unless you have an award to show for it.</p>
<p>I think it’s safe to say that the biggest reason I got into Yale was because of my awards. Grades, scores, etc. are important, but you need some good extracurrics and awards to give your application an edge and get you noticed…Remember, Yale goes through about 26,000 applications from across the world, and they can only accept ~10% of those!</p>
<p>Oh, and if you want, just look through the SCEA accepted pool for 2014…you’ll notice that many kids with perfect 2400’s and perfect GPA’s didn’t get in, while some kids with 2280’s and lower GPA’s got in – but they had other things like awards and leadership to show that they were well-rounded and a good fit for a school like Yale that appreciates more than a straight-edge academic student.</p>
<p>Good luck w/everything :)</p>
<p>While what wasian_girl said is certainly true, awards are not the only way that you can distinguish yourself. </p>
<p>However, if you are into a field that has a large number of opportunities to accure awards: debate, science, music etc. it is better to have them. What is most important though, is not necessarily the level of awards (i.e. awards that are not national can still help an app) but that they are concentrated and show something that you have committed yourself to.</p>
<p>^agreed with Dbate about the concentration vs. trying to accrue as many random national awards as possible. i didn’t put down EVERYTHING i received (i.e., no NHS or other nearly-meaningless awards), but i did record every writing award i had, even though some were not especially renowned.</p>
<p>and wasian, i love the word “nerdling.” :D</p>
<p>It’s fairly easy to get minor awards that show some involvement in your ECs or show that you do well in your classes at school. Like, I figure most people who have taken Latin in HS and who get into Yale have gotten some medal or certificate in NLE. Those types of awards that are really basic might be expected of many applicants. But if you come from a school where no one has ever heard of any academic award, then Yale will probably be understanding.</p>
<p>I agree with pretty much what everyone else is saying. My major thing in high school was community service, and there aren’t too many state/national level awards for that. I only wrote down school awards (13 awards for the highest grade in the class from freshman to sophomore year–> out of 16 classes) which I think may have helped me stand out from other applicants at my own school who had 2 or 3 total. so I think in some cases school awards can help…they cant hurt at least!</p>
<p>so national awards def aren’t necessary (I got in w/o them at least)</p>
<p>^Hm that’s interesting. I was just thinking about the situation at my school, where no one really gets any national-level awards, especially not in science, which is my “thing”. I and other Latin students have won several NLE gold medals and the like, but nothing extraordinary. So how important are school awards such as the ones mentioned above when all seven highly qualified applicants with similar grades/scores from the same school apply at the same time? Will the adcom compare the students from the same school and see that one of them has like 10 awards and others have 0 or 2 and take that into account?</p>
<p>Good question, I want to know that too!
But I feel that because most school awards correlate with grades, clearly the person with higher grades has more school awards and that’s that; those awards are just a tip of the hat to that student’s transcript and they just reaffirming the strength already evident in the transcript. So it’s not really very new information to the admissions committee. That’s my take on school awards based on grades, at least. I mean, of course having 10 is fabulous and a lot better than 0, but the national/regional awards really count.
Especially in the arts and humanities, where both grades and awards can be really subjective. At least winning national/regional awards indicate that to an unfamiliar judge, not a possibly biased teacher, you stand out in a very large, talented pool of people.</p>
<p>School awards (especially academic ones) are probably worthless.</p>
<p>My awards are pretty scarce. A few state/regional Economics things, NLE + other meaningless school awards and some state/regional athletic awards for Soccer/Track. </p>
<p>Unless your award is incredibly prestigious/national recognition etc. I doubt a few more awards will significantly change your chance of admission.</p>
<p>out of curiousity – what awards look best if you’re looking to be a lawyer w/ an english major? thanks. also what are significant IN reach awards that would help w/ admission to yale?</p>