Chances for Yale?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Yale University
1

Hi all! I’ve seen a lot of people do these in the past, and I’ve always been skeptical about the validity of the responses and or the resumes themselves, but I’ve bit the bullet and was wondering if I had a good chance of getting into yale. Here’s my resume:

ACT: 36
SAT: 1570
Ranking: 1
AP’s: fives and two fours

Rec: strong id hope

essays: personal

it’s not so much this that i’m nervous about, it’s the ec’s:

MUSIC:
-varisty choir (3 years)
allstate mixed choir
state solo and ensemble, got 1’s

-jazz choir ensemble (3 years)
allstate jazz ensemble

-choir outside of school (4 years)
National Kodaly choir
i got accepted to perform at carnegie hall

-i did another outside of school jazz type choir (3 years)

-Contemporary vocal lessons (6+ years)
lots of songwriting and winning small competitions
National Young arts competition (winner/finalists)

-I founded a club at my school where i directed students and brought contemporary music in nontraditional areas (2 yrs)

-State teen arts leadership organization where I got to get people more interested in the contemporary arts (2 yrs)

YOUTH AND GOVERNMENT (4 YRS):
-state champion in my discipline
-state officer (presiding judge)
-National Judicial Competition
-club treasurer

MEDICAL RESEARCH:
-I volunteered at a university and conducted research (3 years)
-started volunteering at another university (2 years)
-medical research state summer programs (3 years)
-RSI which is a national medical research program at MIT

oh also i did NHS but that wasn’t too important to me

There you go! Again, it’s not so much the academic aspect that I’m nervous about, it’s the extracurricular portion

2

ooh! I almost forgot to mention, I did a lot of street performing too, just some singing

3

Welcome to College Confidential. If you’ve been paying attention to chance threads on the Yale forum, you will understand my response. Your GPA, test scores and ranking make you a qualified applicant for Yale. However, as Yale receives more applications from qualified students than they have seats in their freshman class, Admissions uses a student’s teacher recommendations, guidance counselor’s Secondary School Report (SSR), essays and interview report to choose one high performing student over another. They look for wonderful scholars of good “character” – that’s an old fashioned word meaning the way you develop your inner qualities, intellectual passion, maturity, social conscience, concern for community, tolerance, inclusiveness and love of learning. Unfortunately, none of those qualities can be gleaned from a post like yours.

So, do you have a chance? Sure! How much of a chance is anyone’s guess.

4

Thanks for the response! I’ll try and emphasize the kind of person I am without going to the lengths of rewriting my entire application:

-I come from an immigrant household yet I’m super southern (which made fitting in at hs fun lol)
-I’ve always been super reserved as a kid and still am to this day, but I’ve always loved performing especially through singing which led to starting a club and young arts

-another thing that really helped me as a kid was stand up comedy. it started off with the likes of perusing through the comedy specials of Netflix but then I came to love the classics like George Carlin, which also helped to shape my political views. That sounds strange, I know, but just the brashness and frankness of these comedians helped me to better view my own life, situation, and opinions which gave me all the confidence and self awareness that I have now.
-I also love medical research and just learning in general. I self taught myself Music theory, and I got a 5 on the AP test for it, and I’m getting pretty good at ASL!

Again, I know that these “chance me” forums are a crap-shoot of strong opinions of urmm less than strong validity at times, but I’m getting pretty desperate in the college admission game, and any help, critiques, and “bets,” are much appreciated!!

oh, for some other academic honors I’m a national merit semi finalist (results are pending for the final) and I’m a presidential scholar candidate

5

Admissions Officers learn about the kind of person you from the comments your teachers and guidance’s counselor’s write in their LoR’s – and AO’s take those comments very seriously. As you haven’t seen those letters or posted them here, it’s really impossible to provide you with any additional comments. Have you read this post from an MIT Admissions Officer? Everything in it pertains to Yale as well: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/939227-reminder-no-one-not-even-me-can-give-you-an-accurate-chance-at-mit-p1.html

I understand that “waiting is the hardest part.” However, given the odds at a school like Yale with an RD rejection rate of 95%, you should assume you too will be rejected. If in fact that does not happen at the end of March, you can celebrate with whoops of joy!!! Until then, what anyone says on this forum (or others) is meaningless, as we haven’t seen your file, nor can we compare you to the 30,000 other applicants in the RD pool. My suggestion: As you’ve already applied to Yale, leave college confidential for the next two months and go do something fun that will take your mind off of the stress of waiting. Best of luck to you!

6

Over the years, RSI kids have had a significantly >50% success rate applying to Yale when they list Yale as one of the three recipients of their RSI letter. If your GPA is in line with your standardized test scores (and your recommendations and essays are also top notch), you have a much, much better than average shot at Yale. Typically, RSI kids who apply RD get a likely letter and an invitation to YES.