Chance..Don't know if I should add Yale to my list

Colleges and Universities A-Z Yale University
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<p>Hello, CCers. So I never ever considered Yale purely based on the difficulty, but then a packet came in the mail yesterday and I like what I saw(: I already have a solid list of 8-9 schools, so please be honest. Should I bother applying? <em>I'm applying ED and EA somewhere so as RD</em></p>

<p>Ethnicity: Indian
Income: >180k
School: Catholic College Prep in Chicago suburbs
Possible Major: Biochem or Biophysics but deff pre-med (I know, stereotypical haha)</p>

<p>ACT: took twice, second time on my birthday, so grades obviously lower:/ can I only submit my first set?
COMPOSITE - 33
English - 33
Math - 35
Reading - 35
Science - 28
Essay - 10</p>

<p>GPA: School does not rank or grade on the 4.0 scale
Weighted GPA only on website: 100.06</p>

<p>Courseload: highest possible
AP's Junior Year (Scores Pending): Spanish Lang, Lang and Comp, U.S. History, Bio
AP's Senior Year (not started yet): Lit and Comp, Calculus BC, Physics C, Chem, Comp Gov</p>

<p>Awards: Principal's Honor Roll 9-11 (99%+ Average)
Illinois High School Association Scholar Award
Honorable Mention on National Spanish Exams Levels 3 and 5, soph and jr year</p>

<p>Now's the fun stuff!
Sports: High School JV Swimming 9-12 Captain for the 2012 Season
Water Polo 11-12 Likely to be on Varsity Next Year
Extra: HUUGE NBA fan</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:
- School Literary Mag: Sales Editor Soph; Editor-in-Chief Jr-Sr
- Sports Writer for School Newspaper Jr-Sr
- Student Ambassador 9-12 (help with recruitment as I go to a Catholic college prep school)
- National Spanish Honor Society
- National Honor Society</p>

<p>Service:
- raised $609 for Women In Need Growing Stronger (WINGS) by leading a summer block party event (plans for 2012 are in progress!)
- member of my parish's youth ministry leadership team
- usher at Church on Sundays
- teacher assistant at my brother's Montessori school during the summers of my freshman and soph years</p>

<p>Experiences:
- attended the 2012 Future Women in Business Leadership Conference at the University of Illinois
- attended a journalism workshop/conference (unsure of title) at the College of DuPage
- attended the Science Careers in Search of Women Conference at Argon National Lab
- attending the summer quarter at Stanford University (taking Calculus and Mechanics/Heat w Lab)
- shadowed and volunteered at my doctor's office last summer</p>

<p>Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!</p>

2

<p>You have to submit all your ACT scores, you can’t do score choice. How much worse were they?</p>

3

<p>Second Round was English-32
Math-32
Reading-32
Science-27 :confused:
Writing-10
Composite-31</p>

4

<p>If I am correct, I believe Yale only considers your highest score- even if you send both.</p>

5

<p>All ACT scores must be self-reported on your application.</p>

<p>You only need to send an official Score Report for your highest ACT sitting (this does not hold true for the SAT).</p>

<p>They will consider your highest score.</p>

6

<p>OP, you should take the time to read Ys (or any school that you’re applying to) testing policy carefully. Here are Ys FAQs, they answer most self-reporting and Score report sending questions:</p>

<p>[Frequently</a> Asked Questions - Standardized Testing | Yale College Admissions](<a href=“http://admissions.yale.edu/faq/standardized-testing]Frequently”>Standardized Testing | Yale College Undergraduate Admissions)</p>

7

<p>If the school appeals to you, then apply. Why not? FWIW, my son had a lot of journalism ECs and got in.</p>

8

<p>Thanks for the link, entomom, that cleared things up! And I think I will apply, you only go through the college admissions process once, so why not!? Thanks for the feedback!</p>

9

<p>IMO, as long as you have a realistic and balanced list of admissions and financial safety, match & reach schools, you can afford to have a shoot-the-moon reach.</p>

10

<p>Well, so far I have…</p>

<p>Safety- Loyola University Chicago, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Target- UChicago (EA), Northwestern, Georgetown
Reach- UPenn (ED), Stanford, Duke, Harvard, and now Yale</p>

11

<p>I think NU would be more of a slight reach with 15% admission rates.</p>

12

<p>With GT acceptance rate at 18% (likely less for RD) and UChicago at 16% (higher for EA?), I would classify all three of these schools as reach, not match.</p>

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<p>

Georgetown was 16.5% overall (18% was for 2015) with RD at 17.27% and UChicago was 17.6% for EA (12.73% overall) this past year. NU’s RD rate was 13.8%. The strange statistic is Georgetown’s EA rate was less than RD at 15.04%.</p>

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<p>I live in the Chicago suburbs and my high school has consistenly had strong acceptance rates to both. In fact, for Northwestern, according to Naviance, anyone from my high school with above a 32 ACT has been admitted so far. Also, for UChicago, I have already interviewed, have strong connections, and deep down, I feel like my odds are looking good. I have really gotten to know my admissions officer and my grades are where they should be. It helps that I already have my supplementary essay down and I know that factors heavily.</p>

15

<p>^ Ditto, especially considering that Chicago has over enrolled the last two years and probably will (or at least SHOULD) reduce its admissions by a considerable amount in order to compensate for this. You’re a Chicago native, though, so maybe that gives a small boost for U Chicago and Northwestern.</p>

16

<p>That’s really interesting information…and I apologize if I came off arrogant or anything, but I have (by complete chance) run into my UChicago admissions officer multiple times (like 4-5) and she told my mother and me that the UChi admissions office holds my school in good regards and that there is a slight edge for local applicants. I based my statement of Naviance, and quick correction, a few 32 ACT’s were rejected but all the rest made it, so honestly I would be a bit surprised if I did not get accepted into either. I know this sounds bad haha but guess it’s a local thing.</p>

17

<p>

I wouldn’t rely too much on past history considering NU’s acceptance rate went from 23% to 15% in the last two years.</p>

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<p>Don’t get me wrong, I certainly wish you the best. </p>

<p>My concern is seeing what’s happened over the past couple of years with students that on paper looked fine but come spring ended up with denials and WLs to what they thought were match schools.</p>

19

<p>I definitely see your point, it’s just I know that I only have 2 categories (Safety and Reach), but for argument’s sake felt I needed to put down some targets. Most of the schools I am applying too are very competitive, so you really never know and I more than acknowledge that.
If anyone has some target schools to reccomend, that would be nice, but I still see the odds in my favor for NU and UChi. (Just a side note, but my AP Lang teacher will be writing one of my letters of rec and he has sooo much NU pride haha he went there fairly recently too).</p>

<p>One more thing, I know that I would be happy at any of the colleges I am applying to, so any feedback helps(:</p>

20

<p>^I have one at NU and one at Yale, you can’t go wrong with either ;).</p>