Applied to Yale EA.
4.0 gpa uw
1510 sat
Activities:
jv (9th) and varsity (10th, 11th, 12th) basketball
Violin in a local children’s orchestra (all four years)
Awards:
regional title for basketball
regional award for violin
200 volunteer hours
Non-citizen asian male for chemistry
Bay Area
Worried about my lack of clubs and awards, what are my chances?
Yale is a high reach for everyone!
Your GPA is great, but your SAT is slightly below average (Yale’s average is a 1540 I believe).
It is good that your activities show commitment, but it will be difficult as you only have those two activities and two awards that are on a regional scale. Students with state, national, and international awards will be rejected…are you at a recruitable level for basketball?
I think it will be a high reach for you, but good luck!
Note that Yale is SCEA not just EA
Your ECs are too weak for Yale and you’re another Asian majoring in Chemistry and a non citizen. So with weak ECs, you need to have perfect Test Scores in all subjects. Too many Asians with your profile but with better Test Scores. You need non academic ECs with strong hook. National level or respected International level awards with strong distinction from non academic type EC awards. Too many Asians with same cookie cutter type ECs like MUN, Intel Science, Math Olympiad, Music, etc.
Sorry to be blunt, but that’s what I see in your very short temperature check. If you were to say you’re going to be an English, Latin, History major maybe you’ll look different. But another Asian with Science. There’s a long line with your background. You need a serious hook. Perfect grades perfect SAT/ACT not good enough. I am not saying that’s what you need to get into Yale, but based on your info that’s what Yale would expect from an applicant like you. If you lived in a jungle with natives and studied micro biology for 2-3 summers and did a significant research write up with a well known scholar then you would have a serious hook! Sorry, but just telling you the truth. You will have a better chance at UC Berkeley, UCLA, Univ Illinois. Maybe Carnegie Mellon. Among the Ivies, maybe try Cornell. Cornell is more like UC Berkeley. Many Asians with your background.