I have a week left...should I apply Yale SCEA?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Yale University
1

I don’t know anything about Yale, so I have to do a lot of research to better answer the essays and questions. This is my mom’s dream school, so I definitely want to try my best. I haven’t started any of the writing portions though, should I wait for regular? My parents tell me it’s “easier to get in” through SCEA but in all honesty, I’ve heard the opposite. Can someone enlighten me on the subject? Thanks!

Also, I do believe I have a tiny chance of getting in, stats-wise. Tiny as in they’re-not-gonna-kick-me-out-because-of-my-scores. They’re within range although my extracurriculars don’t involve a Harvard research paper etc. I appreciate any replies! Especially since the deadline is in seven days :slight_smile:

2

I know it’s my fault, please don’t roast me about being bad. Part of the reason why I refused to look into Yale is because I didn’t want to fall in love with a school I’m probably not getting into.

3

If you don’t have other EA or ED schools, why not? You can finish the essays in a day if you focus, and have someone review it next day, edit it again a third day … yeah, plenty of time to apply SCEA.

4

@culaccino - Post this on the Yale board too. There are many active people on that board that might not check this one.

5

Are your SAT’s over 1500 or ACT 33+, UW Gpa 3.9+ (or top 3% of class)? That is who you will be compared against in the SCEA round, along with athletic recruits and people with varying strengths of hooks (children of major donors, URM, legacies, faculty children), which means you need great essays, LoR’s and EC’s to stand out. One of the things that Yale looks for is will the candidate make the most of Yale’s resources as well as contribute to the Yale community? I find it hard to believe that you will be able to articulate convincing essays or short answers on what Yale can do for you or you for the Yale community in a week if you are starting today with 0 knowledge of Yale. I would assume at best you can write some generic pieces where you could substitute the name of any top college in Yale’s place.

I for one don’t believe there is any but maybe a slight advantage applying SCEA. SCEA rates are much higher than RD rates, but you have to take out the athletic recruits and other super hooks like children of major donors, and then you have to consider that the applicant pool is much stronger. If you are serious about Yale , you are better served by writing thoughtful tailored short answers and essays to the Yale supplement on the Common App. Also, if there is room to improve your testing (SAT1, ACT or SAT2) there are still a couple of months or if there is some pending EC accomplishment/honor that you can garnish in this time, I’d wait and submit the strongest possible app.

6

As @BKSquared noted, the applicant pool for the SCEA round is very strong, and competition is fierce. The SCEA applicant pool for Yale tends to be the best of the best. I think a lot of high school students consider themselves only within the talent pool of their own high school. So if they are really strong in their high school, and they have high test scores and lots of rigor and good ECs, then they apply to many of the schools with the sub 10% acceptance rates. What they don’t realize is that they really need to be strong on the national level. Not necessarily with national awards, but qualities and experiences and ways of thinking that really stand out when being compared to students from all over the world.

This is not to say that you do not have these qualities! It’s just something to consider.

You said that Yale is your mother’s dream school. Is it yours? In a recent post, you list reach schools as Vanderbilt, Emory, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Rice. But not Yale.

7

I’m sure that you know that you shouldn’t apply to your mother’s dream school if it’s not yours, but perhaps you could find out from your mother why it’s her dream school. Perhaps your views align, and perhaps they don’t.

I agree with @BKSquared that there is very little bump for applying SCEA. There is a huge benefit to knowing early in your year that you have gotten an acceptance, which is also why I suggest applying to (finances permitting) a highly rated public (e.g., UVA, Michigan, etc.)

I very mildly disagree with this. DS, for example, was not top 3% of his class GPA-wise (a small private school with selective admissions). However, his LoRs indicated that he was top 3% to many of his teachers, and he had the other elements, but the point still stands that you will be compared to some very accomplished and talented applicants. That said, the comparisons don’t get easier in the regular round either.

8

Looking at your other threads, you appear to be competitive stats-wise, and are auto-admit to UT already. I’d say go for it unless it conflicts with some other school you already want to apply to EA or ED that violates the rules set out in the Yale SCEA rules.

9

@intparent @IxnayBob @Faulkner1897 @BKSquared @bogeyorpar Woah thank you for all the responses! I’ve decided to gun for it but not freak out if I can’t make the deadline. Yes, Yale is not my dream school, only because I chose not to look into it, while in contrast I’ve looked into Vandy, JHU, etc… I actually don’t have a dream school, just several I’d love going to.

It’s true that my mom wants me to get in more than myself, but my parents have worked so hard to support me, and I’ve been so fortunate that I grew up in an environment that is semi financially stable, so in a way, this is my way of giving back. I will not submit a crappy application, and I will probably end up loving Yale which is what I wanted to avoid, but it’s a small price to pay.

Thanks for the reality check–I needed that! As intparent said, my stats may be competitive. Here’s a short summary:

SAT 1580 ACT 35 Math II 790 Bio and Chem SAT II 760
NMSF, Top ten out of ~460 students, 4.0 UW GPA, National AP Scholar
VP or P in 3 clubs, founded 1 club, in 2 nonprofits outside of school
300+ hours of clinical vol, 100 in variety of other service stuff
Asian female, Texas
Personality that I hope to express through essays: I’m goofy, don’t really like sports, very loyal to people and academics, passions don’t really line up but it works out for me (medicine, planes, movies, kinda random), etc.

A little irrelevant, but:
*my grades dropped 2nd sem junior year, but I have a personal explanation for that. They also dipped a tiny bit 1st sem junior year, can I attribute that to going from 1 AP class to 6? Or is Yale expecting superhumans?

10

@cullacino, good luck.

Any explanation for your junior year should probably come via your GC’s letter, rather than directly from you, if your GC considers it necessary. An example, long story short: DS had a concussion and was cajoled into taking a History test, got a B in the course as a result of the poor test score, and rather than explain it, got a 5 on the AP test and a 780 in the SAT Subject Test. He didn’t mention it in his application, but he wanted to “show” that his only non-A in a core class was an anomaly.

11

What are your grades looking like 1 semester senior year? If they are back on an upper trajectory so that they will be reflected in the RD round, it may be another reason to wait, although with your stat’s, I doubt you will be rejected in the SCEA round and if you are deferred, those grades will come into play.

If you feel you can put together great essays/short answers in a week, as @IxnayBob posts, knowing you are in a top school in December takes a lot of pressure off the rest of senior year and reduces a lot of application and related expenses for your parents and time and effort required of you to finish off a bunch of app’s.

Good luck! By the way, I am confident the more you research Yale, the more you will like it.

12

FWIW, my daughter’s grades dipped a bit junior year due to the increased rigor of mostly AP classes and several insanely demanding extracurricular commitments. I think AOs are aware that things get much harder that year for many students. Her senior year grades were strong, so that probably helped. She was accepted SCEA.

Here is a good place to start in your Yale research:
https://admissions.yale.edu/what-yale-looks-for

Good luck!

13

Thanks again for the responses! My gc has explained my situation through her rec letter. As of now, my grades are 95+ so I’d say my grades are going back up :slight_smile: