<p>I go to small, private Jewish high school that offers no AP's or IB courses. Honors Geometry and Honors Algebra 2 (which i have taken in 10th and 11th grade, respectively) are the only 'higher level' classes offered. My school has a dual curriculum, so i have Judaic Studies in the morning and regular classes in the afternoon. I'm not sure whether or not that is considered more difficult, since i have a very wide array of different classes. I have a 3.9 GPA in my Judaic studies and a 4.5 GPA in the regular classes thanks to the two Honors classes (4.0 unweighted). I have already taken the ACT and got a 30 composite score, though i am considering retaking it in October. My extra-curricular activities are modest, with volunteering here and there. I'm head of Fundraising for my senior class this year and am also in the Costume Committee for the annual production. Although my school doesn't do rankings officially, I am at least number two if not number one. As for diversity, I am Jewish with a Russian background, and I speak three languages (English and Russian fluently, and proficient in Hebrew). So do I stand a chance, or should I completely forget about it?</p>
<p>You’ve gotta raise that ACT. A 30 isn’t going to cut it. Also, if your ECs really are average, you need really good essays and recs. Based on what you have right now, your chances are below average.</p>
<p>Sent from my HTC VLE_U using CC</p>
<p>I agree that your chances are below average - and the average chance is only 8%.</p>
<p>Yeah, I thought my chances were super-slim too, and I wasn’t seriously considering it until Yale started sending me letters, emails, and a guidebook in the mail. I’m not sure if they’re going for publicity or if I seriously have a chance.</p>
<p>Yea, no offense, but that is all publicity. I got the same thing in the mail. They just want you to apply in order to make their applicant pool as competitive as they possibly can. The more the merrier</p>
<p>" that is all publicity. I got the same thing in the mail. They just want you to apply in order to make their applicant pool as competitive as they possibly can. "</p>
<p>I’m not as cynical. What if raca and MD2017 had scored 2300 or 34s on recent tests? In the CC conventional wisdom, they immediately seem more “viable” or likely applicants. Would those brochures/letters/emails seem like just publicity to you? Or a viable outreach by a top university to a pool of likely candidates?</p>
<p>Just b/c one’s stats are on the lower end of successful applicants doesn’t impart inherent damnation on Yale (and others) marketing plans. How do they know what your scores are? They know that based on a few metrics, mailings to students like you are beneficial to them overall – and consistently a few diamonds in the rough apply and are accepted each year through these outreach methods. If it’s garbage to you, so be it.</p>
<p>Collegeboard doesn’t distribute your scores to colleges, only the info from the survey. College spam mail isn’t based on scores.</p>
<p>Do you think that each of these schools send out over a million e-mails and expensive full color brochures each year? Of course they are using some selection criteria as do all groups that purchase marketing lists and schools like Yale certainly use PSAT scores in setting a threshold for plausible applicants.</p>
<p>See: <a href=“Hoard 'em, Horns! University of Texas sitting on nearly $1B in gold bullion - InvestmentNews”>Hoard 'em, Horns! University of Texas sitting on nearly $1B in gold bullion - InvestmentNews;
<p>“Consumer groups said that the nonprofit College Board, which owns the SAT college admission test, and its nonprofit rival, ACT Inc., are making money by selling personal details about teenagers. The companies collect information on millions of test takers and both sell names and information to colleges at 33 cents a name.”</p>
<p>“Yale University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology are scaling back their marketing, saying they don’t want to encourage kids who likely won’t be accepted. Yale, which admitted 7.4 percent of applicants this year, cut its mailings by a third since 2005 to 80,000, Jeffrey Brenzel, dean of undergraduate admissions, said in an interview.”</p>
<p>“I feel obligated to be reasonable in recruiting so we’re not creating unrealistic expectations of applicants,” Brenzel said. “If a student has only the most remote chance in admission, I feel it’s inappropriate to try to persuade a student to send an application.”</p>