Do I have a shot at Yale?

Colleges & Universities A-Z Yale University
1

Hey guys! I’m an international student (Indian) who really wants to get admitted into the Yale CS Program.
I’m applying to Yale as a SCEA (Single Choice Early Action, non-binding) Applicant.

ACT score: 34

School
8th Grade: A- (84%)
9th Grade: A- (88.45%)
10th Grade: A+ (94.2%)
11th Grade: A- (84%)
12th Grade: A- (86%)

Extra Circulars

Sports:

  1. School soccer captain in 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th (in the school team since the 4th grade) - Played State Level Soccer
  2. Won the Most Valuable Player award while representing school in the soccer festival (u-17)
  3. State Level Tennis Player - I also have a National Rank
  4. Athlete: 100m and 200m gold medalist ( 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th) - I was injured for our annual sports meet in the 12th grade

Volunteer Work:

  1. 20 hours of social service at a Door Step School
  2. 10 hours of volunteering in a fund raiser (Blind Marathon)
  3. 7-8 hours of environmental hazard campaigning

Achievements:

  1. Elected as the School Head Boy by the students and teachers of the school on our Annual Election Day ( Teachers nominate and students vote )
  2. Nominee for the School Sports Captain
  3. Best Speaker Award at inter-school debate competition
  4. Stood 3rd in the all India Declamation Competition
  5. School Ambassador for the TERI-TETRA PAK competitions and workshops
  6. Took part in 3 MUNs - Received an honourable mention in one

In Relation to CS:

  1. Took part in many IT Quiz competitions ( Infosys, TCS, Cyber Crime Quiz, etc )
  2. Took online programming courses which were not part of the school curriculum
  3. Currently aware of 7 programming languages: Python, C#, C++, Java, Java script, Basic HTML, Visual Basic
  4. Qualified for the Google Code Jam
  5. Accepted in the Google Engineering Practicum Internship for 2018

Miscellaneous:

  1. Hosted the School Annual Day Program
  2. Hosted the school Independence Day Program
  3. Acted in an authentic Shakespeare Play - The Merchant Of Venice
  4. Performed at 3 live Music Concerts - I have been learning to play the guitar since 5th grade

Given all this, do you think I will can be accepted at Yale?

2

Do I think you will be accepted? Who knows. Nobody outside of admissions can tell if you will be accepted. Certainly you can be accepted. Based on your information, you have the same 3% chance (maybe a little higher) as every other international student applying to Yale. Good luck.

3

Thank you @skieurope !
I’ve heard that the acceptance rate for the Yale CS Program is higher than the general acceptance rate cause the CS Department is small and not as big and famous as that of Stanford, MIT, etc… Is this true?

4

Yale does not admit undergraduates by major; one is admitted as a student to Yale College so, IMO, what one plans to major in will have no effect on the admissions decision.

5

Oh, okay. Thanks!

6

Yale does not admit by majors and there is no published breakdown of stat’s of admitted or matriculated students by major/interest. Assuming there even is a sub sub bucket for CS majors as the AO makes its decisions, you have no idea from year to year the quality of applicants in that pool. I highly doubt there is much deviation in standards from major to major in any event. What is more likely is that applicants interested in STEM will on average have greater achievement and demonstrated interest in the form of awards and EC’s in math and science than a Humanities leaning applicant who will on average have greater achievement and interest in subjects and activities more aligned with the Humanities.

I am unaware of a published breakdown of Indian national undergrad students at Yale. If we use Harvard as a proxy, the latest available data shows 22 Indian nationals as undergrads http://worldwide.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/worldwide/files/2014-15_international_enrollment_school_country_fromoir.pdf , which means there are 4-6 matriculates a year, or probably 6-8 acceptances a year. That should give you some context of the competition ahead of you.

7

Thank you @BKSquared !