<p>Hey guys, I'm kind of torn right now as to whether I should apply Early Action to Yale.
I have a horribly low GPA.. 3.35 unweighted :( I did score a 35 on my ACT, 790 on two SAT subjects, come from a school where nobody has straight As and both my parents went to Yale.
Senior year courseload: AP Physics C, AP Calc BC, AP Lit, AP Capstone (new AP pilot program), Spanish
AP Chinese: 5 AP US: 4
Should I even bother applying SCEA? If not, I have other colleges that I want to ED to. </p>
<p>The decision whether to apply to Yale SCEA is yours alone to make. Some things to consider though are 1) Yale has stated that it rejects 4 out of 5 legacy applicants and 2) ALL top schools look at the high school transcript first. They want to see if the applicant has taken the most challenging course load they could and excelled at it.</p>
<p>@jimb0hk - why not talk to your guidance counselor? If you’re at a school where no one gets straight As, Yale is likely aware of this, and will consider your GPA relative to others at your school, not to other schools that have higher average GPAs. But no one here can tell you if this is the case or not. Your guidance counselor can.</p>
<p>If you have access to previous acceptance histories for your school, you might get some clues from that too. If you see a pattern of acceptance of former students with less-than-stellar GPAs to top colleges, it should be a clue.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, I noticed that in the recent survey of freshman at Harvard, children of legacies had higher SAT scores than non-legacies, which suggests that one reason for the higher acceptance rate for legacies may be that they are more qualified than the average applicant. I’m not implying this is the only reason because the colleges are transparent in stating legacies do have an advantage in the application process.</p>
<p>Yeah, from what I’ve read, legacy will do next to nothing for your app. While holistic application review will help you with your GPA (which, yes, is below average for Yale), I think if you have some significant awards/honors outside of what you mentioned above, or if you write stellar essays, you have as good a chance as anybody. It will be an uphill battle though, trying to overcome the 3.35.</p>
<p>@jimb0hk - I’ve read somewhere that colleges may look at the legacy parent’s contribution (not just monetary) to the school as part of the legacy consideration. If your parents have remained active in supporting Yale (via the alumni association, interviewing applicants, donations, etc), your legacy status may carry more weight.</p>
<p>^^ That is correct but it still only a feather on the scale. On the other hand, if your family has done developmental work, that’s a different story. Bottom line is you have to be a superior applicant and then legacy will be the tiebreaker between you and another superior applicant.</p>
<p>@BldrDad has a good point about speaking with your GC and getting a sense of where you stand at your school. </p>