Because of a horrible junior year, I was initially discouraged from applying to some schools just because they are top schools. However, because of a changed attitude and hard work, I have become immensely positive and I am going to take a shot (I mean my fees are being waiver, the worst I can garner at this point is a “no”, right?) my guidance counselor has also encouraged me. Let’s say I have some very interesting and character building ECs. I have taken the SATs a second time, so the only one I have is my first one (which is a 1750, I know, quite the application killer). My grades are fantastic right now (I talking A-A+ range even in my weak areas), I am a minority female who wants to go into science, and I am highly motivated. My problem is that I look like poop on paper, with my stats alone. My essays for my finished RD applications are phenomenal. I have had several teachers and my guidance counselor read them. My guidance counselor has said I am one of the strongest writers she has ever encountered. The essays were humorous, but serious. They expressed personality and a strong desire to study neuroscience. My recommendations so far are said to be amazing. My guidance counselor hasn’t told me what’s in it (because duh) but she has said that I am the only student in her entire career that had a 2-page, single spaced guidance counselor reccomendation written for them. My teacher from last year has said that I am among one of the most brilliant students she has had in career regardless of how mediocre I had done last year (B-). I guess I am asking, with positivity guiding me towards earning excellent grades, further commitment with my ECs, excellent essays, and excellent recommendations, would I stand a chance at schools like Yale or Tulane? I am just an afraid senior. Thank you for reading this tangent
Essays and recommendations are very, very important particularly for someone like you. admissoons officers do read an entire application regardless of test scores. Essays and recommendations will be more powerful at a private university than at a large public flagship university. Good luck!
@Wje9164be Thanks very much! It’s good to know that this process isn’t all for nothing so far.
Obviously your grades and scores aren’t going to help you. I hope your new SAT score is higher. As an URM your application will get a careful read and fabulous recommendations and essays can help. I saw with my younger son that good essays and recommendations really can make reaches possible. Make sure you have some safeties that you will be happy to attend, add some matches and if you aren’t going to be upset if your reaches don’t see you as a diamond in the rough, don’t look back excel wherever you end up.
Yale and Tulane are pretty different schools. Tulane will probably look at stats more heavily (On Common Data Set, grades and test scores are more important than essays and rec letters).
Yale on the other hand will consider everything. It’s very helpful that your teachers/counselor wrote those kind of recs. Extracurricular activities also play a big role. Yes, you were the best student in your school academically, but what about outside the classroom?
Take the SAT again or ACT if you can. Any little bit helps, and getting a better score will give Yale more of a reason to accept you.
Has anybody in your school ever been accepted to Yale?
Unless the SAT goes up 400 points, that and a 3.23 unweighted GPA through your first 3 years of HS mean you would need to be a heavily recruited athlete or Malia Obama to stand any real chance at Yale.
Apply if you don’t want to wonder “what if” for the rest of your life, but make sure you have a list of safeties and some more realistic match/reach schools.
Malia Obama…yeah, right.
Let’s assume your SAT goes up to at least 1900 second time around. In that case, Yale is still a major reach per the Common Data Set, Section C (http://oir.yale.edu/sites/default/files/CDS2014_2015.pdf). Who knows, lightening might strike. But frankly, I think you are setting yourself up for a really tough time academically. You will be in classes with students who have been producing As at academically competitive schools for years in every subject, aced their test scores, and all have extraordinary achievements outside the classroom in addition. If you end up doing well - which means a transcript full of Bs for the first two years while you catch up - is that going to take you where you want to go?
If you are at a somewhat less academically rigorous school, you have more change to shine, to stand out to the faculty, to develop the mentor-mentee relationships that will help you get to the next level. (For neuroscience, that would be a top neuroscience Phd program or possibly medical school.) Tulane is a much better fit from the point of view.
I’d also look at some of the liberal arts colleges (LACs) like Swarthmore, Bowdoin, Carleton, Vassar and Amherst (still major reaches) that offer small classes, close faculty relationships and more supportive and nurturing academic environments. It is clear that your teachers and GC think you are exceptional, and I’m guessing that if the faculty get to know you at your university, you will likewise impress them. But that’s going to be harder when you are one of 8,000 undergrads (at Yale), as opposed to one of 2,000 (at a LAC). And there are many excellent less selective LACs that offer very strong neuroscience majors.
Try googling some lists like these:
http://colleges.startclass.com/d/o/Neuroscience
http://study.com/articles/Best_Neuroscience_Undergraduate_Programs_List_of_Top_Schools.html
To answer a few questions, yes. People from my school have gained admission from Yale. Someone in my class has already gained admission because they are valedictorian and a top athlete. @rdeng2614 Idk if acceptance history for my school has much to do with me and my application process.
I understand that it’s going to be difficult and I’m fine with that. I also understand that it’s going to be difficult to go to school their. I don’t think the SAT is reliable in predicting how one will do in college. Many students in my school have gotten 2250 + and have gone forward to do poorly. Many have earned a 1950-2000 and have excelled at a rigorous college. I truly think it’s dependent on the time you put aside for studying, etc. I think would be capable of doing well, should I gain admission. But that’s beside my point.
Thanks for the doc. about Yale. It puts things into perspective in terms of seeing what the adcoms will value and look at.
Unless I’m mistaken noone in your class has already gained admission to Yale. Evals haven’t happened yet. I’m sure the person feels they are a lock, but not a fact yet.
@“Erin’s Dad” she actually got in. She has already signed with them and needed to submit an EA application to seal the deal. It’s known to the public that she has chosen Yale and is signed up with the sports team for which she was recruited. In all honesty, I have no idea how the recruitment works, so I could be misunderstanding everything.
It is highly unlikely that good recommendations, essays will make up for below average grades and standardized test scores (unless as noted above there is a huge hook such as being a recruited athlete). If you want to throw in one or two super reach applications, fee free. But I’d try to focus the majority of your effort on schools where you are more of an academic fit.
I’m amazing at biology, not to toot my own horn. If I do well at the state level in the Olympiad//science league, will that show some promise by RD admissions season? I don’t know if that’s necessarily a hook.
I’m just afraid more of schools like Rutgers because word on the street is that they’re not holistic and they are ALL about numbers. This especially worries me because so many top students use it as a safety and that could kill my chances. People like myself need the essays and reccomendations to not have our applications tossed immediately.
@Polyglotgal
You are definitely right. On Rutger’s common data set, grades, test scores, class rank, rigor are all listed as very important while essays and recs are only considered.
If you aren’t within Rutger’s ranges, perhaps you have to find more schools in which your stats fit their profile.
For Bio, doing well in some competitions is nice, but not as nice as a 4.0 GPA first semester senior year.
You have to understand that colleges are first and foremost academic institutions.
So I just saw my SAT scores and I don’t think they’re going to help me. So the first SAT I ever took was the June 6th one. Here are the scores:
CR 530
M 530
W 690
1750 all together
My second try is very weird, it was the October 3rd one:
CR 700
M 600
W 590
That is 1890 all together, with no preparation whatsoever.
I am now eligible for scholarships at some less competitor universities because my combined M and CR is 1300. But I’m so confused. How could my writing score have gone DOWN by 100 points? And even if I superscore it, the SAT will only be a 1990 and that is going to get Yale to toss my application in a heartbeat. It was weird. Because I was pretty sure that I bombed the math section and that I aced the writing. This new SAT will forever remain an enigma
“with no preparation whatsoever.”
I can assure you that almost every single student accepted to Yale (and every other highly selective school) prepped for this exam. Why would you not prep?
This is the reason why you would be better off at a less selective school. It’s not about your ability to do the work per se. It’s about your ability to manipulate the system to work for you. Training wheels first.
It is my opinion that essays, ECs, and recommendations to a lesser degree become more important as the selectivity goes up and are primarily used as a means of choosing between otherwise similar candidates. At very selective universities such as Yale they become important because most of the applicants have already met a very high academic standard. It is my opinion that they probably won’t help you at Yale but might at schools where you on the bubble academically (ie 25th -50th percentile).
Well your second set of scores is much better than the first since writing is generally not considered. My older son got a perfect score on the PSAT writing but never cracked 700 on the SAT. One time they didn’t like his essay, the next time he screwed up the multiple choice.
@“N’s mom” I didn’t really have any time to prepare. My junior year was filled with 40 hour work weeks and that was the case for my summer. I was also gone for 3 weeks at a summer program where one had to really WORK for 3 college credits. Add a research project to that. Then you can factor in the work along with AP summer work. And you can also factor in the homework that comes with AP classes and having ones weekends preoccupied by work that brings in an income that is necessary to keep a family afloat. I guess you could say that yes, I didn’t use the training wheels. But the vast majority of applicants to Yale don’t have to deal with working excessive hours their junior year, let alone working in general. I have no way to pay for SAT prep courses that other “low-income” kids can afford at my school. I’m like one of the poorest students at school, and the only one of the poorest that actually aspires to apply for Yale. I know that my stats don’t help me, but don’t you think they would take into consideration exactly why I couldn’t prepare? I know, this prompts the question of “well if you’re not like the other students, then won’t it be difficult for you to adjust? Why apply to a school where you simply don’t fit in?” I think my circumstances have really screwed things up for me at a such a crucial moment. Why would I not apply though? Sometimes admissions can be very random and I don’t want to miss my chance because of my circumstances. Isn’t that considered giving up? I mean won’t Yale see that I have had the odds stacked up against me and that I’m trying to break out of the cycle? I mean according to the statistics, I’m supposed to be poorer than my parents. Yale isn’t the end all, be all. But that doesn’t mean that going there won’t help me with me my goals.
I know this seems like I’m only bound to repeat my mistakes at a school like Yale, but it’s a different place with vast resources. I feel like some pressures will be gone. Don’t take this as my mindset now being that a top school like Yale will solve all of my problem. As naive as I may be, I don’t think that. I just think that Yale can help me in accomplishing my goals. That’s all a school can really do in my opinion at least. I just don’t want you to think of me as someone who blew it off and expects to get somewhere in life by blowing things off. I’m just an anxious 17 year old.
Polyglot, I’m not trying to stop you from applying to Yale. I think you have very little chance with your test score, but even if you were admitted, I think attending might actually not be in your best interest because you will not get the level of personal attention and support that a student from a non-traditional background should get in order to be successful in a highly competitive environment - especially in the first two years when classes are larger and faculty interaction is limited. Others may say that Yale will provide that attention and support - that their vast resources will make it possible for you to get what you need. Perhaps this is true. Maybe they have support groups explicitly for non-traditional students. But I can say that schools at that level of selectivity have the expectation that you are a highly independent learner and will aggressively pursue whatever resources you need to succeed - and that if you fall behind, you will be responsible for identifying and correcting your shortfalls. (The fact that you didn’t self-study for the SAT, as many do, is an early warning sign.) No one (faculty or TA) will notice that you are lagging and ask is there is something they can do to help. No allowances will be made for an insufficiently rigorous high school education, for example, that leaves you academically unprepared in any way. (I’m not saying your school isn’t rigorous - I don’t know - although if you are able to work 40 hrs/wk in junior year, I am dubious.)
Even if you don’t lag and you end up with a string of Bs (which are very good grades at a selective school), you may find yourself feeling discouraged and questioning your ability to succeed, when in another less selective environment, you’d be making As, feeling self-confident and getting attention from faculty who know your personal story and care about your success.
I suggest you take a look at Malcolm Gladwell’s book, David and Goliath. Read the case of Carolyn Sacks. This is the situation I am concerned about. I think sometimes the elite schools do their non-traditional students a disservice by depriving them of the opportunity to experience how special they really are. If after reading this, you think you are up to the challenge, then full steam ahead, but with eyes fully open.