<p>I applied to Yale RD, and I sent in a supplemental CD (music recording). Do you think it counts for a lot? I am getting so nervous about this whole process, especially considering their raw RD acceptance rate was something like 5.8% last year. And I expect it to be less than 1% this year with all the applicants...</p>
<p>It may or may not count at all, and no one can tell you exactly how much it counts. </p>
<p>Here's how it works. First, an application has to get past a certain gate with respect to the basic elements of grades, curriculum, and test scores. If it doesn't, an accompanying CD will not even make it out of the admissions office. Assuming the file makes it past the basic academic threshold, the admissions committee will forward the CD to the appropriate faculty for a ranking. The rule of thumb is that a CD should demonstrate conservatory or near-conservatory talent in order to help a student’s application at a school like Yale. How much can it help? Who knows?</p>
<p>wjb, I know that you are only one opinion, but what do you think is the minimum academic threshold? Like a 95.0 GPA? I am wondering if I even make this so-called threshold, which I didn't think existed as a hurdle before supplements can be reviewed. Unless someone is out-of-the-question non-academic, I would think that all types of strings could be pulled in the "holistic admissions" process.</p>
<p>entangled -- I honestly don't know what the minimum academic threshold is. I do know that according to the Yale Common Data Set, 97% of kids who enrolled last year were in the top 10% of their high school classes. But that doesn't really mean much, because many high schools don't compute class rank, some weight grades and some don't, some deflate grades and some inflate them, etc. Add to all this the fact that the rigor and quality of high schools varies so dramatically. So in a vacuum, a 95.0 GPA just doesn't mean much. Context is everything. That's why it's mostly meaningless to "chance" people. Many colleges, and Yale is very likely one of them, will recalculate your GPA according to their own metric. But in assessing your record, Yale is definitely going to consider the quality and rigor of the courses you’ve taken within the context of the opportunities you’ve had. </p>
<p>Re your point about holisitic admissions, I do want to add that a very few applicants -- someone with the name recognition of say, Lang Lang –- would probably get a free pass on meeting the academic threshold. For those few, music would be a genuine hook.</p>