Myself: Greek Male from Athens, Greece. Low middle class. No legacy. First Generation Student.
My School: Competitive Public high school.
Academics:
GPA UW: 4.00 W: Not provided by school
Class Rank: 4/110
Honors/ IB/ AP not provided
Scores:
SAT: 600 Verbal, 640 Math (only had to 2 weeks to prepare because of the national exam 2-year prep)
ACT: N/A
Subject Tests: Non taken
EC’s:
School President (11th, 12th Grades)/ Year President (10,11,12th Grades)/ Member of the student Council since 5th Grade/ Class President since 7th Grade.
Founder and Spokesman of a Youth Activist Organization. Main Agendas: Education, Human Rights, LGBTQ rights, Climate Activism.
Co-organized the student climate strike in Athens with more than 3.500 participants (something unprecedented for Greece).
Wrote many articles in national newspapers
Appeared about 4 times for interviews on national TV and in International TV (Al Jazeera and VICE)
Met many politicians to discuss our agendas, including a former PM, party leaders, the Former Minister of Education, many members of the Greek Parliament.
More than 200 members nationally (seem not than many but again, we are talking about Greece)
Elected Member of the Hellenic (Greek) Youth Parliament.
Chair of the educational committee
Speaker and Representative in the General Assembly (many politicians present)
Campaign Manager/ Communications Chief/ Social Media Manager at a national election Campaign.
Won the second place in the elections, but there is only on seat.
Volunteering work at many organizations including Vision Network Athens (an NGO promoting multiculturalism), local animal shelters etc.
2 month internship at vouliwatch.gr, a non-partisan parliamentary monitoring organisation.
Responsibilities: Political History research, MP financial status Analysis and monitoring, data analyis.
Founder and President of the school's Debate and Film Club.
Participated in Debate Competitions.
2nd Place in the National Student Short film Competition.
Participated in the national Holocaust memorial short film competition (met two holocaust survivors)
Member of an Adult Drama Club.
the only teen member. Charity plays collecting food and clothing to provide to local in-need families.
Early Action: Yale
Major: Political Science, Psychology, Marketing, Econ
I know its crazy and super ambitious but Yale is the only need blind school accepting the Duolingo test.
I wish i can demonstrate that my SAT score is that bad because of the 2 weeks studying. Could not do anything at all not even sit again because of the national exam preparation.
Yale doesn’t publish the number of enrolled students from each country. A comparable school that does publish those numbers is Harvard, which currently has 7 undergraduates from Greece which is equivalent to <2/year. Which means that only a handful of the most extremely outstanding students in Greece make it in to schools like Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford and MIT each year.
Even if you tried to explain that two week study time issue, it will not be regarded as a valid excuse by highly selective schools.
Sorry, but your tests scores pretty much will preclude you. Less than 14% of the latest reported freshmen class had an ERW score below 700 and less than 11% had math scores below that level (and you are at the low end of the 600’s on top of that). An even smaller fraction of matriculated students will have both scores that low. Students below the 25th percentile (let alone the 10th percentile where I would guess you to be be with those scores) have a major hook (most likely athletic recruit or major donor) getting them in.
On top of that, admissions rates and standards for international students is tougher than domestic students. You will need to get your SAT components into the 700’s to even make the first cut is my guess, so there is a good chance you will be outright rejected. If you are going to try a lotto shot at Yale, I’d suggest applying RD after taking the SAT one more time in hopes of some drastic improvement. There may be some leeway in ERW, but math is math and you will need to be around 760 there just to be in the 50th percentile.
You would need significantly better SAT scores to be a competitive applicant, and as an international student, even with near-perfect scores you’ll only have about a 1-2% chance. It’s unbelievably competitive.
I think that most students at Yale, or at any comparable university in the US, could walk into the SAT with absolutely no preparation at all and get significantly higher SAT scores. I certainly know a few students who did exactly this. Yale and a very small handful of similar schools are exceptionally competitive.
Your grades are very good. You are clearly a very strong student who will do very well at university. Very likely it just won’t be at Yale.
Even with holistic admissions, academics are of paramount importance. You need to prove to admissions officers that you have the academic ability to succeed in a very demanding environment. Unfortunately as others have noted your SAT scores are well below average for Yale. https://admissions.yale.edu/standardized-testing In addition you have not taken any SAT II scores which are recommended by the university.
Nobody here can or even should stop you from putting in an application to Yale but please understand that your chance of admission is extremely low. It is important that you put together a realistic list of schools that appear affordable. I would look at colleges in your home country and perhaps throughout Europe.
This profile would make you a very strong applicant for Sciences Po Reims, McGill, UToronto, Trinity Dublin, UEdinburgh. Apply before December 1st for the best odds at scholarships.
I understand you only had 2 weeks till you took the test but why did you take it then and not later, when you would have had enough time to prepare?
Have you registered for another session of the SAT or perhaps the ACT? Any subject tests?
Is your school well-known?
Did you or someone in charge produce a School Profile that indicates how strong it is (ie., “when someone at ZYX school gets 18, they actually tend to get 19.5 for Panhellenic”; “20% score 18+ for Panhellenic, v. x% nationally”…)
What’s your Duolingo score?
You’d have a shot on the strength of your ECs if only you’d reached 700s. But I agree that for a non native speaker trained in the Greek system, that’s pretty impossible, and a score in the 600s is quite good. Nevertheless… I doubt it’ll be enough for Yale since you could have chosen another date.
Look to see if Oberlin or Grinnell have ED2. Consider applying to one of these for ED2, as they have money and will appreciate the political activism.
