<p>Hi,
I'm a sophomore at a local, medium-sized, well-reputed, public high school (early for thinking about colleges, I know).
I'm an Asian male coming from a family with medium income (~ or <100k).
I've been playing the piano for 11 years now and I've won or placed in several local or statewide competitions and I'm fairly well known amongst my peers and musical families.
I've also been playing the violin for 8 or 9 years. I'm in my school orchestra and I was also selected to participate in the All-state music festival.</p>
<p>Aside from music, I swim year round and I've gotten 2nd in the state at Age Group Championships in an event. (I'm 2 or 3 seconds away from the minimum recruit time). My club coach is good friends with the Yale Head Coach, who also knows me from meets.</p>
<p>My grades however, are nothing spectacular. I had a 3.9 GPA freshman year and as of right now, only a 3.636 GPA this year. I take 5 honors classes (out of 6 classes, not including gym) and next year, I'm taking 2 AP courses and 3 honors classes. My class ranking is pretty high, being top 1-1.5% of the grade. I'm on the math team and I'm in my school's "freethinker's club," and I'm looking to apply for the National Spanish Honor Society and Tri-M International Music Honor Society, as well as the National Honor Society itself.
I have over 100 hours of community service as of freshman year. </p>
<p>So how do you guys think my chances are looking so far?</p>
<p>Hi! Don’t worry too much, you still have a few years.</p>
<p>I think that you should focus on your swimming because it can really help you. As you may know, the Ivies aren’t the best athletic schools, but you should still be at junior national level or placing at senior sectionals in order to be seriously considered.</p>
<p>In terms of academics, it’s hard to tell where you stand without standardized tests. A good GPA doesn’t really distinguish you from other applicants.</p>
<p>For extracurriculars, keep doing what you are passionate about and stick to it! Leadership positions are nice as well, of course. In addition, don’t quit swimming because it can really add another dimension to your college application as an amazing and reputable extracurricular, even if you don’t end up swimming in college.</p>
<p>Haha, it’s just that recently a lot of people have been asking me about what schools I’m looking at, and ever since I was a little kid, I’ve always aspired to go to Yale. It’s such a beautiful campus! It’d be a dream come true to get in.</p>
<p>I don’t think I’ll ever place at sectionals, but making Junior Nationals is definitely a possibility. I love swimming, but my instruments and schoolwork have been detracting my ability to attend practices. I’ve been trying to hold onto it because my team is like my family and also, I know that it can really help with applications.</p>
<p>This year, my GPA is really low because I got the HARDEST chemistry teacher. All I have time to think about is chemistry and it’s really been affecting my other grades. I heard next year is a lot better after this teacher. Hopefully I can pull off a 3.9 next year. Also, I’m taking the chemistry and Spanish SAT subject tests tomorrow morning. I should get some standardized data back soon. I’ll post it as soon as I find out.</p>
<p>I’m EXTREMELY passionate about music and I’ve actually been looking to get into the music school at Yale.</p>
<p>Pretty hard to tell when you have two years left but if you get good grades and high scores seems like you’d have a pretty decent shot with the swimming and music. Just make sure your academic stuff is good.</p>
<p>@rainbowrose
I take the most challenging classes my school has to offer…I’m just worried about my GPA. I can’t find a balance between difficulty of classes and straight As. I don’t find any of my classes particularly hard on their own, but it’s the collective difficulty that really screws me up.
My senior year is looking like AP biology, AP music theory, AP psychology, AP calculus AB, AP Spanish Literature, AP world literature and language composition, and honors orchestra.</p>
<p>You can’t get into the Yale School of Music.
When you apply to Yale, you apply to the college as a whole. There is no application for a specific school/department. Furthermore, the Yale School of Music is only open to graduate students. Once you’re accepted to Yale, you CAN audition for lessons at Yale SOM (it’s very hard, considering people turn down Juilliard, Eastman, etc. to go to Yale), but you still don’t get any kind of performance degree like you do if you were an actual part of the school. The best you can get is a BA with the music <em>department</em>, which is just a general music degree and doesn’t require any audition during the application process.</p>
<p>(There is actually a 5-year BA/MM program done in conjunction with Yale SOM, but it’s very difficult to get into and I don’t believe you can apply until junior year or something.)</p>
<p>That said, you should still strongly consider Yale. I read somewhere that the most popular EC for acceptees to Yale is music. You will have no trouble finding people who are just as passionate about music as you are because it’s one of the biggest things on campus. I’m actually attending Yale next year, and I chose it over a performance degree at Northwestern among other schools.</p>
<p>Thanks YeloPen!
My neighbor is a relatively famous violinist. She graduated from Yale in '08 and she attended Juilliard Pre-College. From what I know, she got her masters in music right away (??). Do you have any idea what she could have done?</p>
<p>I’m guessing she did the BA/MM 5-year program I mentioned. You can get a Bachelor of Arts in a discipline of your choice and a Master’s in Music from Yale School of Music, all in 5 years. But like I said, I don’t think you can apply for that until you’re a junior at Yale.</p>
<p>I don’t know exactly how hard it is to get into, but I think it’s very, very tough … and if you apply and don’t get in, like I said, there’s plenty of music stuff for you to do at Yale so you can keep yourself going at a high level. And if you want to, I think you can still apply to other music schools for graduate school with a Yale BA because it’s mostly based on the audition.</p>
<p>Your resume will develop as you trek your way through your high school career. That being said, your freshman GPA is not bad (unless the 3.9 is weighted). Try and do some unique service projects that will make you stand out from the crowd on your application.</p>
<p>That, you see, is what you will need to accomplish when you apply to Yale University; here we have a group of intelligent, fine young adults applying to an Ivy League. Most of those students have stellar grades and great extracurriculars.</p>
<p>How does Yale decide? Well, there are many different answers; the simple answer is that they look for the most unique, well-rounded students (those who stand out on an application and do or have done something special).</p>