<p>Hey guys I just submitted my HYP apps and I'm nervous like everyone else. I was doing research about Yale applicant stats and getting depressed on CC looking at all the 2400/4.0 kids who got rejected. Then as I was researching famous Yale alumni and was wondering how the hell George Bush got into yale? Especially when is SAT was only 1200/1600?!</p>
<p>His father was a legacy, and he was politically well-connected. </p>
<p>There was this aricle about how he got into Yale through affirmative action, it was written in 03’ during the Supreme Court decision about Affirmative Action @ UMich.</p>
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[CNN.com</a> - How affirmative action helped George W. - Jan. 20, 2003](<a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/01/20/timep.affirm.action.tm/]CNN.com”>CNN.com - How affirmative action helped George W. - Jan. 20, 2003)</p>
<p>Harambee is correct… but it was also just much easier to get into college back then. Far less people went to college so the application pool was much smaller/less competitive. Lots of people with stats like Bush’s probably got in.</p>
<p>^That’s true, he went to Yale in 1964. Admissions have changed a lot since then.</p>
<p>I don’t know if lots of people like Bush got in, but Hopeful is right in that getting into HYPS was probably a lot easier back then.</p>
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<p>How’d he manage a 566 verbal? I didn’t even know such a score was possible.</p>
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Yep. In 1963 (when Bush applied):</p>
<p>Average SAT V: 668
Median SAT V: 676
Middle 50% SAT V: 631-715
Middle 80% SAT V: 585-743</p>
<p>Average SAT M: 690
Median SAT M: 702
Middle 50% SAT M: 650-739
Middle 80% SAT M: 599-766</p>
<p>2493 admitted (20.8%), 1037 enrolled </p>
<p>21.7% were legacies</p>
<p>51.7% public high schools
48.3% private high schools</p>
<p>2.80% New Haven
19.4% New England
16.3% New York
41.2% Mid-Atlantic/Southeast
18.3% Midwest/Southwest/West
5.30% International</p>
<p>Average age: 18.3
Average weight: 160
Average height: 70.3"
23.5% were 6’+</p>
<p>Is it just me, or is the average weight kind of high, considering how probably 50% of the students are probably female?</p>
<p>And the students had to report their weight and height?</p>
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Yale only admitted males until 1969.</p>
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Apparently.</p>
<p>consider, also, that they didnt have tutoring back then. </p>
<p>my second interviewer graduated in the class behind George HW Bush and said that GPA standards were about the same. In fact, he said that it was common place for all yale applicants to be national merit finalists and valedictorians. He proceeded to tell me that, even back then, they did not admit solely based on academics, but they looked for one or two other special talents. Just like it is now, many 1600/ 4.0 students didnt get in because the admins dont think that yale is the right place for them or because they are just smart and have nothing else to offer.</p>
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<p>Oh.</p>
<p>That makes sense, then.</p>
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I doubt that’s true. Holistic admissions is largely a result of an overabundance of qualified applicants. Back in the '60s it seems Yale was about as selective as, say, UMich or NYU is today. You aren’t going to be rejecting too many, if any, 4.0/1600s.</p>
<p>Before the test was recentered, 1600’s basically did not exist. When Bill Gates took the SAT, he was in the top 7 students nationwide by scoring 1590.</p>
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<p>Even later, in the 1970’s when my friends were applying, this wasn’t true. Yes, they were smart kids and had good scores (and indeed, the SAT was harder back then!). But the two classmates of mine who were accepted weren’t even NMSF and nowhere near being the valedictorian. College admissions were very, very different and much less competitive back in the day.</p>
<p>Or, instead of saying they were less competitive, you could also say that it was harder to get good grades and SAT scores, and therefore the need for ECs as a differentiator was less acute.</p>
<p>wow harambee great article. I wish it wasn’t so much harder to get into college these days 
. Damn exponential population growth</p>
<p>The Yale classes before 1969 must have been bland since there were basically just wealthy males being admitted.</p>
<p>^You forgot “protestant” and “white”. And so was every aspect of upper-class society in America.</p>
<p>I was admitted to Yale in 1974. While it WAS much less competitive back then, it was still very competitive, much more so than Michigan or NYU today. If someone wasn’t at or near the top of his or her high school class at a strong high school, there was usually a pretty clear reason for admission – special talent (at a national level), sports recruit, developmental recruit, affirmative action, significant EC achievements. Not everyone was a NMS, but there were lots of them. There were also lots of non-Protestants and non-whites. Men significantly outnumbered women. There were very few G.W. Bush types, and lots of them were actually pretty miserable; they had a hard time. My class did include one child of a future President, and one bona fide Kennedy. I don’t know if either was miserable, though, since I didn’t know either of them.</p>
<p>Re George W., it is impossible to overstate how important his father was. At the time, George H.W. Bush had not yet run for President, or been selected Vice President. He was a two-term congressman from Houston who had headed up the CIA for a few years, and was serving a term as chair of the Republican Party. But at Yale he was a total celebrity – the biggest of BMOCs, team captain, student government leader, Bonesman, very involved with the university. It isn’t remotely surprising that his idiot son (and nonididot sons) were accepted there.</p>
<p>Also, there were 40-something kids from Andover in my class. They went DEEP into the class at Andover.</p>
<p>I was a year after JHS so we may know each other and not know it. </p>
<p>Lots of kids from old time families, including one of my freshman year roommates. When he was flunking math, he received in his college mailbox a copy of the letter sent to his father’s parents when he was flunking math. That was amazing - and it went well with the dozens of bounced checks he’d get in his monthly bank statement. Point is: standards were different then. </p>
<p>As for SAT’s, I was told by my school that I had either the highest or second highest score in my state and it was not 1600.</p>