<p>Go to: [Detailed</a> Data | Office of Institutional Research](<a href=“http://oir.yale.edu/detailed-data#ycfreshmen]Detailed”>http://oir.yale.edu/detailed-data#ycfreshmen) and click on “W026 Freshmen by State Origins.” In 2012, there were 78 incoming freshman (from a pool of 1300 students) that resided in CT. Unfortunately, there’s no-way to tell the income brackets of those CT admitted freshman.</p>
<p>Op,
If I understand correctly, you are attending a top boarding school as a day student and you are low income (I assume you are at your independent school on financial aid?)</p>
<p>To know if you have a shot, you must take a look at the matriculation data from your own boarding school and how many kids they send to Yale each year over the past 5 years or more, if you can get it. Your college counselling office will have the data. This will give you a sense of how favorably Yale considers your BS. If your school consistently sends a fair number of kids to Yale, then you have to figure out where you stand in the pack of students from your school that is applying to Yale. (Why are you looking at Hotchkiss’s matriculation data instead of your own?)</p>
<p>If the numbers look favorable, then it’s not so much an “instate” vs “out-of-state” advantage, but more of a “feeder school” or Yale-knows-our-product advantage, but your GC is using euphamisms. </p>
<p>Also, if the numbers look favorable and you’ve compared yourself with the other kids at your BS who are applying to Yale, and you are different from them in that you are low income and they are high income, then, yes, you may have a fighting chance. This is assuming that they can tell that you are low income based on things like your essays or parents education level. They do not have your financial data when they review your app. If you and the other applicants are similar, then it’s back to random crapshoot.</p>
<p>If your BS does not routinely send a decent # of students to Yale, then I would say that it’s again a random crapshoot and to not believe your GC.</p>
<p>Also, there are probably lots of male applicants with 800 writing applying to Yale and also to Dartmouth.</p>
<p>I have looked at my school’s matriculation data and Naviance; my school sends a group of kids to Yale each year. But does that really matter? Yale’s website says they don’t have a cap on the number of kids they’ll take from a given school, which suggests that I won’t have to worry about how I rank amongst my peers. </p>
<p>I also do not think that just by virtue of going to a boarding school I have an advantage; like someone pointed out, the number of Ivy League matriculants my school has is just due to a preselected student body, not school reputation. I bet Yale is eager to overcome that stereotype that the Ivy League is just for elite prep school kids. </p>
<p>And finally – I would be the poorest person applying to Yale almost certainly. The other two applicants I know of right now are both legacy, millionaires. However, I’m still not sure all of this matters because Yale claims (and I believe them) that they don’t compare you to other kids from your high school. </p>
<p>Thanks for your point about communicating my low-income through essays. It sounds kind of sleazy to milk something like that but I think it would be an important part of my app. Anyways I think my original question was whether or not Yale cares about recruiting comparatively poor kids from underrepresented parts of CT; it sounds like that’s not true.</p>
<p>“Yale’s website says they don’t have a cap on the number of kids they’ll take from a given school, which suggests that I won’t have to worry about how I rank amongst my peers.”</p>
<p>While Yale, and other select colleges, do not have a cap on the number of students they take from each high school, they do compare you to all other college bound students at your school. Your Guidance Counselor must even rate your course rigor and GPA against your peers. See upper section of page 2 on the Secondary School Report (SSR): <a href=“https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/Docs/DownloadForms/2013/2013SchoolReport_download.pdf[/url]”>https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/Docs/DownloadForms/2013/2013SchoolReport_download.pdf</a></p>
<p>@OP You will have to apply to see what happens in the next app cycle. Dd14’s school has a very close relationship with the Yale School of Medicine and has sent kids to Yale in the past few app cycles. They were STELLAR students. All of which come/came from different socio economic backgrounds. Its a crap shoot. Do not rely on what your GC says. Everyone has told my dd that she is a shoe in for so many schools d/t her stats/urm/low income status. One should never get their hopes up. She is the type of kid who will hit “submit” and probably forget that the apps exist. I will be the one who will worry about those envelopes while she is off enjoying herself. How long have you been here on CC? Haven’t you seen students assume that they have an automatic in, and then, the let down happens. Send in your app in the fall and enjoy senior year. Life is far too short to be obsessing about this now. </p>
<p>@CPT-- I have heard through the grapevine from some very reliable sources that Yale does indeed hold spots for New Haven kids. I always laughed at this notion and thought it was just heresay/rumor. I am not sure what you mean by town gown thing. Yale has done alot in the recent past to open its doors to our students and dd has taken advantage of tons of activities and her resume is replete with enrichment activities that Yale has offered. For Free. I think that was the old image of Yale many moons ago. Its ashame that more New Haven kids don’t take advantage of these programs. Many kids from the suburbs are fighting to get into the NH school system now. Its quite comical to see it now… </p>
<p>DD and I went to a multicultural open house @ Yale in the fall. I asked the Dean of Admissions if New Haven students were at a disadvantage due to the close proximity of the school, Yale is 2 minutes away by car. She said absolutely not and they love New Haven students. I was surprised. Whats funny is that dd had NEVER even considered Yale up until this past fall. Wasn’t a big deal to her. It was a set of buildings with students running about like little ants. But the open house reall;y opened both of our eyes… DD wants to apply now, what a shocker!!!.. surprise surprise.</p>
<p>“Thanks for your point about communicating my low-income through essays. It sounds kind of sleazy to milk something like that but I think it would be an important part of my app.”</p>
<p>Actually, I would let your GC communicate that fact. By doing so, colleges will know about your income status without your essays coming across as whiney and “woe is me.”</p>
<p>I’m glad that Yale is working on their town/gown relations. Historically, they have had rocky relations so that they were always the school brought up as an example of how not to work with the community and town. </p>
<p>I agree with Gibby that the best way of conveying your situation is through your GC and others at your school.</p>
<p>@gibby,</p>
<p>Thanks for the link. That article is VERY true. Most kids never even think of applying to Yale. DD14 never had any interest in SCSU either for that matter. Its one of those schools that historically most could gain entry. From what I understand, there was a waitlist 2 app cycles back. DD took a class there in the fall and says it was very easy. Not much of a challenge at all.</p>
<p>@CPT, you are right. Thanks for jogging my memory. Things have gotten better in the past 15-20 years.</p>
<p>I thnk Yale has recognized that a thriving New Haven promotes a thriving Yale. </p>
<p>A century ago New Haven was a very prominent manufacturing center. It was, for example, the Detroit of horse buggies, not to mention the arms industry, i.e., Winchester. Yale was simply the school in town, and far from the number 1 employer, as it is today, along with Yale-New Haven Hospital. Now it dominates the local economy and the benefits of symbiosis.</p>
<p>One advantage for New Haven students is that those with a certain score on the PSAT can take tuition free Yale courses as high school juniors and seniors–something not available even to inner ring suburbs. This may out them on the Yale radar. </p>
<p>But I agree with newhavenctmom about spots for locals. My kids’ high school regularly gets admissioms for the top two or three students. They are eminently qualified, but so are many rejected students elsewhere. I think the advantage is that the top, qualified New Haven students are admitted without the further review, while someone who is qualified but not from New Haven goes through further competitive review.</p>
<p>It is certainly true, literally, that Yale does not have an in-state preference, but it’s also misleading to say that. Certainly, when I was there (years ago) it was fairly clear that smart, working-class kids from small towns all over Connecticut were well-represented at Yale, much more so than they would have been at Harvard (which in turn had a lot more smart, working-class kids from small towns in Massachusetts or Maine than Yale did). It helped if they played football.</p>
<p>If you look at the data gibby linked, you see that the number of students from Connecticut may be declining, but it’s still more than from Massachusetts, a state with twice the population, most of which lives less than three hours from Yale. Maybe the difference is all faculty brats, but I doubt it. Of course, Yale may get more applications from Connecticut, proportionally, than from elsewhere, so perhaps the not-quite-preference just reflects the admissions pool.</p>
<p>A couple of other small points:</p>
<p>-- For generations, Lawrenceville was THE feeder school for Princeton. Even if that’s no longer completely true, it’s not the lease surprising that Lawrenceville sends a lot more kids to Princeton than to Yale. Hotchkiss never had as close a relationship to Yale as Lawrenceville had to Princeton. (But . . . Dink Stover himself went to Lawrenceville, IIRC.)</p>
<p>-- The SAT Writing test has little or nothing to do with actual writing. I doubt a high score on the writing test creates anything like crushing expectations for someone’s writing.
I</p>
<p>JHS, you say that there is literally no in-state advantage, yet you saw great representation of CT residents from various CT towns; how do you account for that if there is not an in-state advantage?</p>
<p>I look at the statistics this way: In 2012, outside of NY (189 students admitted) and CA (178 students admitted), CT had the next best numbers (78 students admitted). So, CT does seem to hold an advantage over 48 states (irrespective of the actual numbers of students applying from each one).</p>
<p>^^ Look at it another way: In 2012, 14.5% of Yale students hailed from NY, 13.7% of Yale students were from CA, and 6% were from CT. Fourth in line would be students from New Jersey, who made up 4.8% of Yale’s incoming class.</p>
<p>Here’s another way to look at this. It’s in the long-term institutional interest of Yale, as it is for any other academic institution, to develop a cadre of locals who become part of its culture and favorable to its goals. Local alumni are often in leadership roles in both public and private institutions. It doesn’t hurt that one grad is New Haven’s chief administrative officer and another is chair of the International Festival of Arts and Ideas. </p>
<p>Yale alumni who live in New Haven are townies too.</p>
<p>This shows the interconnection: </p>
<p>[YaleNews</a> | New Haven and Yale celebrate activists who strengthen town-gown ties](<a href=“http://news.yale.edu/2012/04/10/new-haven-and-yale-celebrate-activists-who-strengthen-town-gown-ties]YaleNews”>New Haven and Yale celebrate activists who strengthen town-gown ties | YaleNews)</p>
<p>@latch Nice but are these Yalies home grown? Or are they transplants from elsewhere? I think these folks were born/raised elsewhere… I think that is what the point of this thread is… Is there any advantage to being a CT resident prior to applying to the school. I might be wrong on this one.</p>
<p>Yale does give a small preference to children of employees, which accounts for some of the CT excess. Lots of children of profs are also likely to be accepted ( a higher proportion than children of other employees). There are also plenty of alums who settle in CT. And large numbers of local students apply to Yale, in the belief that they will have a better chance there than at Harvard or Princeton. At our school, for example, around 35 students out of around 400 applied last year. So CT students likely make up a disproportionate share of the applicant pool, which may partly explain why so many go. And then finally, as in NY and NJ, there are a good number of wealthy communities in the state, where schools and parents have the resources to give their kids major advantages in the admissions game. Is there a straight geographical advantage in addition? Only the adcoms know for sure.</p>
<p>Eye veeeee</p>
<p>But there is the fact that Yale regularly accepts the top New Haven public high school students. They are all qualified. The advantage is that the local top students WILL be admitted, which is not annually true for qualified students not in New Haven.</p>
<p>Hotchkiss sent 15 students to Yale last year; those students were some of the greatest students, academically and physically; however, I do highly doubt that Hotchkiss being in CT has anything to do with its success rate at Yale. BTW, when students from boarding school apply to Yale, and any school for that matter, they use their home address. Good luck, anyways.</p>
<p>I would account for the high representation of CT students at Yale with the fact that nearly every academically high standing student in CT applies to Yale lol. I mean I don’t have statistics to back this up, but out of the 5 high schools in my district - that is the five small schools represented by my town’s Yale Club - there were 17 applicants. I’m not sure how this compares to other states or areas, but it just seems as if CT students grow up looking to Yale as the epitome of a dream college; and end up applying in mass numbers.</p>