<p>My D has 740V, 670M; 3.5 (which is upper 10%) at very reputable private school (but not Andover-or Westlake level). Solid varsity in volleyball, softball and equestrian, but probably not athletic recruit calibre. Well-liked all around great person (of course I'm biased.) I'm an alum, loyal donor for 30+ years but at the $1,000 level mostly (we're not rich, in other words).</p>
<p>Based on your experience, and assuming she applies EA, what are her chances? The reason it's important is that if she has little or no chance at Yale, we'll have to face reality. That means picking another great school, probably ED.</p>
<p>Any advice or thoughts will be most appreciated. Thanks</p>
<p>i was just accepted ea so i hope that my experience applying can help you out. i think that it is really hard to say what anyone's chances would be, but with good essays and recs i would say that your daughter is a good applicant. i had around the same stats (740 M, 660 V) with 3.8 unweighted GPA and participated in student government and varsity sports. i'm not sure how much of an influence the legacy has (although it surely doesn't hurt). i myself did have a legacy but am not sure what role that played in my acceptance. since your daughter is at a reputable high school, i'm sure that her college counselor is familiar with yale and could give you good feedback on what his/her thoughts are. hope this helps!</p>
<p>I'd say that she has a decent chance with her stats, ECs, and legacy status.</p>
<p>And for some advice on the application process... If Yale is her first choice, she should apply EA to Yale, whether she knows she'll get in or not, and the same goes for any school. No sensible person applying to an ivy is positively sure they'll be admitted (except in rare cases that I don't need to mention).</p>
<p>Not thinking you have a great shot at getting into Yale EA and picking a different top school to apply to EA or ED is not facing reality. Facing reality would be to pick a few saftey schools that you love and would attend if need be. If Yale is your daughter's absolute top choice, then I think she should go for it.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies.
Her other EC besides sports is work. Basically, she has to earn the money to ride, which means "shoveling the horse manure" and other untidy tasks working shows across the country in the summer, and at the local stable during school. Riding is ridiculously expensive, so she's rolled up her sleeves (literally) to make it happen for herself. Equestrian has the reputation f being a rich kids sport, but in her case it's meant getting down and dirty. It shows a lot of determination.
However, she's not a student government/model UN person, which would have been nice, but it's just not her thing.</p>
Riding is ridiculously expensive, so she's rolled up her sleeves (literally) to make it happen for herself. Equestrian has the reputation f being a rich kids sport, but in her case it's meant getting down and dirty. It shows a lot of determination.
<p>Can she interview early at the university before her EA app? I think she has a solid chance, and if she is an all-around great person, I believe the interview on-site would help. I agree with sprezz - she also needs to find other colleges she could see herself attending. Visit some of the other great schools and apply RD to them, as well has having a good safety or two.</p>
<p>Definitely not better than 50%, but she has a decent shot. At a school with a single-digit acceptance rate, I'd put her in the 15-30% range. If she could retake the SAT and get above Yale's average (1500) I think she'd have an even better shot.</p>
<p>Almost no one has a better than 50% chance of admission at HYS anymore, even kids with top 5% grades and 1600 SAT scores. The only thing that gets you above 50% these days is URM status (sorry for the political incorrectness).</p>
<p>You're thinking of the legacy admit rate at Harvard, not Yale. Harvard's is 40%, Yale's is more like 28%. Her stats are impressive, but probably not moreso than than the average Legacy applicant. You are also forgetting that legacy applicants at these schools are generally more qualified than the average applicants (although the admits are slightly less qualified than the average admit - hence, the difference in acceptance rates).</p>
<p>There are legacies and there are LEGACIES. It seems like the poster's child is the small-letter version, so while it will help, it's not nearly the tip it once was. </p>
<p>Ex. Big-letter version: a) Parent is high profile person in own right (dinner table recognition or business hotshot), b) large donor ( 1000 a yr. is not in that catagory) c) potential large donor d) Parent was BMOC in his day </p>
<p>Many LEGACIES are more than one of the above. If you're not, your chances are still above average, but the student's record must be on par with the other admits.</p>
<p>She definitely wants to look at schools other than Yale, which I heartily support. She's a junior now and won't be applying until the fall, so she has the luxury of time.</p>
<p>Right now the leading candidates for a campus visit besides Yale are Georgetown, Haverford, Bryn Mawr (she's unsure about all-female schools, however), Princeton (but if she can get in here, she'd probably get into Yale as a legacy, and would go Eli for sure); also Brown, Dartmouth and Williams, which have NCAA equestrian.</p>
<p>For a safety, Hamilton College and Trinity would be strong possibilities. Colgate may be a bit too selective to be safety.</p>
<p>The main thing is that it has to be what she is comfortable with. And I do get the sense that even with 1400-1500+ and excellent GPA, being a legacy helps but it's hard to say how much in any individual case.</p>
<p>Those are all excellent schools! I do think that Colgate (a great school!) is a safety with her stats. I think she should seek out a couple more schools like Colgate and apply to more than one as safeties, but I can't see someone with her academic background ending up at a Hamilton or a Trinity (and that is nothing against those schools at all). Georgetown itself is borderline safety status for her... maybe 80%+.</p>
<p>I hate to sound negative, but realistically I think she needs to realize that Yale is a long shot, as she'll probably be up against a great many legacies with stronger stats and hooks than hers. This isn't to say she shouldn't apply, but this is the perfect time for her to be finding other colleges that she truly loves.</p>
<p>Yes, that was a bit negative, ivyqueen! :O Between "long shot" and "better than 50%", I think YaleDad can derive a happy medium as to what her chances are.</p>
<p>Y: About 14 percent of last year's entering freshmen were children or grandchildren of alumni of the college, graduate school, or professional schools. The admissions rate for legacies is about 40 percent -- three times the rate for non-legacies.</p>
<p>L: It's important to understand that being a legacy does not guarantee admission to Yale College. But the pool of legacy applicants is substantially stronger than the average of the rest of the pool. The grades and test scores of the legacies we admit are higher than the average of the rest of the admitted class, and the legacies that matriculate achieve higher grades at Yale than non-legacy students with the same high school grades and test scores.</p>
<p>When you stop to think about it, this isn't so surprising. Legacy students are coming from highly educated households, where books, reading, and cultural life are prized. They tend to be more exposed to and more serious about intellectual matters. We are admitting very strong students as legacies.</p>
<p>Byerly, did you alter the about 30 percent clearly stated in the article to about 40 percent? That kind of thing could get you kicked off of CC. This is the source of what you purposely misquoted, Harvard man.</p>