Interview on Yale Admissions Process with Former AO Post Scandal

Colleges and Universities A-Z Yale University
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https://■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/blog/former-admissions-officer-from-yale/?fbclid=IwAR1UabJnTJdm9ZyTUuDZl2OSCSbkGqYasnnI9aa-FaczyJnLv4dLboQoUg0

Note the comment on test scores being less important, especially for those who obsess over another 10/20 pts on the SAT or 1 point on the ACT.

Also note the comments on legacies.

All of this is consistent with direct conversation I have had with various AO’s as an interviewer and a parent of applicants.

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And yet the test scores for admitted students at most select colleges and universities keep rising.

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Interesting. She trusted coaches more than test scores, as far as potential cheating went.

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She also said …if the student met the basic criteria of a student who could handle the academics at Yale most likely they would be admitted.

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  1. She said "less weight" on scores and in a pool of lots of kids with very high scores, we all should know that. It doesn't mean less consideration of scores, from the get go. She also mentions the relative weight of grades/transcript. Relative, not "best takes all" or "most AP wins." There's more to it.
  2. She's now...drum roll...another paid pro counselor. I can't find when she left Yale.
  3. Yup, too much authority given to coaches.
  4. Overall, far more the picture I know than most bloggy stuff or the hearsay spread around. I think it's an invitation of sorts to think about the process, delve deeper where we can, and try to process, not assume.

But, notice the VERY few “adcoms” who speak out are those who’ve left the position, one way or another. (For many, years ago.) And usually (count on it) have gone into paid counseling. Doesn’t that tell us this isn’t pro bono generous advice? She even squeezes in words about her employer.

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^^ well of course. The web site this is posted on is the site for the private counseling company.

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MODERATOR’S NOTE:

No reason to give her free publicity, so I’m filtering out the link. As a reminder though, ToS prohibits links to personal or commercial blogs.

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Interesting that this former AO played down the significance of legacy status. My sister graduated from Yale 30 years ago and the consensus among her and her Yale friends is that legacy doesn’t mean much unless it’s attached to significant (as in seven figures) development money. I also know that there were several students from DS 19’s class who applied to Ivies last cycle as legacies, and even double legacies. Measured by GPA and test scores, these students were all “in the ballpark” as far as Ivies go. None of them got in.

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And yet the myths about legacies dominating the class carry on. Or that they’re sure bets. Not.

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If legacy preference weren’t a big deal, why keep it? If it were kept to please alums, wouldn’t they be more pissed if their kids were rejected at the same rate as unhooked non-legacy kids with otherwise similar profiles? Sure, legacy status (or anything else) alone won’t get a kid into a selective college, but that doesn’t refute the fact that the legacies enjoy a significant advantage over unhooked non-legacies.

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To actually test whether legacy status has an impact, it is not enough to provide a bunch of anecdotes of legacies who were rejected.

Besides, the acceptance rate to Yale is so low that even if being a legacy increased one’s chances of being accepted threefold, that still would only be about 18% acceptance rate for legacies, meaning that more than 80% of all legacies who applied would be rejected.

While Yale claims that only 11% of their students are legacies, as can be seen with Harvard, a college can simply change their definition of “legacy” to manipulate the results. So, While Harvard claims to have only 14% legacies, according to their own paper, almost 37% of their class of 2022 had a relative who had attended Harvard, and 14.5% only referred to having at least one parent who attended Harvard. I would not be at all surprised in Yale had similar ways to redefine what they mean by “legacy”.

Legacy makes good business sense for a private colleges which depends on alumni donations, and therefore will not be eliminated. They may just find other ways to mask it.