<p>"What does your dad do? What does you mom do? Where did your grandfathers work?"</p>
<p>All are highly improper questions.</p>
<p>Be it yale or a local community college, questions such as these are inhumane and should be reported to Yale. </p>
<p>iamme:
You should notify Yale about this interviewer. He seems to be very impartial, and hopefully no other senior trying to get into Yale has to face him.</p>
<p>iammme</p>
<p>First I will disagree with your theory of "well connected" unless it pertains to those within the northeast "feeder school" domain of which I clearly have no reference point. Certainly, a fair share of Andover, Choate, Milton grads et al are admitted to HYP each year. Interestingly, I recall reading posts from students at these schools who all said that admission percentages to Yale , particularly during SCEA were significantly down last year.</p>
<p>As to the rest of the country, my son's school had eight (of a class of 82)apply to Yale last year. Six applied SCEA, three were admitted, two deferred and one rejected. Of the two deferred, one was a legacy- the only legacy in the group. During RD the two deferred were subsequently admittted as were two others.</p>
<p>Of the seven admitted, six were very strong applicants all with SATs all between 1530 and 1580, debaters, (unrecruited) varsity athletes, publications editors, musicicans, student leaders, members of the choir and for the most part, just good, well-rounded, interesting kids. The one whose scores were slightly lower though still above 1500 was the legacy-but I would hardly call his a "gift" admission.</p>
<p>I have said this in other threads and I will offer it again. We attended four Yale info sessions over the course of two or so years and there were two points that were almost to the point of "in your face" pronouncements" made at each session. I mean when they come right out and say "I can't stress this enough...." someone should hopefully be paying attention.</p>
<p>One: Concentrate on your essays, it is your one chance to "bring yourself to life" their words, not mine. As nycdad said before me, almost every applicant will have incredible grades, scores and ECs, so how do they choose? They are trying to "build a class of interesting people" again, their words, and they need to get to know who is behind the numbers. This creates a real challenge because they aren't looking for well written rehashes of "overcoming adversity" or the other standard pablum that will be in so many applications. They are looking for depth of character, insight into what makes the applicant tick and a sense of humor. This requires a lot of thought and rethinking of the process for many students.</p>
<p>"Does my essay tell them who I really am, in my voice?" should be the mantra that dictates the process. The Yale adcoms said it's your "one shot to tell us who you are, and to give yourself a voice"...PAY ATTENTION! Your essays will need to cut through the clutter so to speak, to make them feel that they "know" the person and can't wait to meet them. I am not kidding here. After admission, the regional adcom called my son's school and commented on his essays as well as those of the other boys and she even wrote him a note talking in detail about one of his essays.</p>
<p>Two:Yale also "strongly advises" (HINT HINT) that you take advantage of the interview process. I learned after the fact that they use this a means of corroborating the soft data (essays and recommendations) to be sure that the applicant is who they say they are. They already have the have the hard data (grades, scores etc) in front of them and, on paper, many/most applicants can and do look alike. The interview helps them differentiate and is a significicant component of the process.</p>
<p>In our case, the interviewer was a local businessman who never asked a thing about grades, scores, family history etc. He engaged in a conversation wanting to know that my son's real interests were, how he spent his time away from school, what he did for fun? They spoke about ethical issues relating to journalism (son as editor of the newspaper) and the trust that is encumbent with such a position. My son came home and said that it was a conversation and never felt like an interview. He felt like the person really wanted to get to know him and that it went far longer than he had planned or anticipated.</p>
<p>Lastly, and on another point of issue, the application itself, they said this numerous times. Follow directions, only include what they ask you to include, ie two academic recommendations not three or more, unless a supplemetal recomendation is given by someone who knows the applicant in a completely different light and can add substantive information that wouldn't be gleaned from the two academic recs. Two adcoms came right out and said that the thicker apps go to the bottom of the pile.</p>
<p>To those posters planning to apply to Yale, listen and pay attention because in our case (and that of six other friends) it worked. Good luck.</p>
<p>thanks; that's very valuable info and advice.</p>
<p>Please listen to nycdad. He speaks the truth. My son is a freshman at Yale. His stats were pretty similar to iamme's son. My husband never graduated from college and works at a blue collar job. We live a very modest lifestyle. My son got into Yale, in part, because he was just plain lucky. But also because he had very focused ECs, great essays, and a "hook". We had no "connections" and neither did 3 out of my son's 4 suitemates.</p>
<p>cleveland, you dont happen to live in Cleveland, do you? I live in a south east suburb of cleveland.</p>
<p>So, how wealthy do you have to be to influence college admissions?</p>
<p>If you donate enough money to build a new building, you should be set.</p>
<p>interviews really don't hold that much weight. My dad interviews for Princeton and a lot of students he recommends don't get in and some students he thinks are obnoxious do.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I got into Yale and was waitlisted at Rice. My friend is attending MIT but got rejected from University of Texas. Another one of my friends was accepted to Dartmouth, Harvard, and Brown and got rejected from Rice. So don't get too discouraged if you don't get into one particular school (I was in tears after my waitlist from Rice - I didn't think I'd get in ANYWHERE).</p>
<p>Cheers and luck!</p>
<p>In my suite of seven people, only one went to a private school.... and although this is probably not a good representation of the freshmen class as a whole, but when I came to Yale, I was pleasantly surprised by how many people were NOT well connected or anything... yeah, sure there are people with connections, but on the whole, everyone is pretty normal =)</p>