<p>yeah, there seems to be an epidemic going around causing a lot of misery. I think the cure will be April 1st, which unfortunately is April fools day.</p>
<p>Yale.edu have you applied?</p>
<p>I was told that April was the prime month for suicides around our age....mainly becuz of college notifications.</p>
<p>Eww anyone who would commit suicide because of a college decision obviously doesn't deserve to go to that college lol</p>
<p>or its someone who completely overestimated their chances.</p>
<p>I agree with Andi: While there's certainly a chance the OP's daughter will be admitted to Yale, the legacy hook is by no means a guarantee.</p>
<p>My husband and I both graduated from Yale, and when our daughter applied EA in 2003, many people--not her parents--kept assuring her that her legacy status made her a shoe-in. She took it very hard when she was deferred, and though she was eventually admitted RD, we know other Yale parents whose children (including a couple whose son had slightly higher stats than my daughter, and whose sibling was already enrolled there) were not.</p>
<p>Here's part of a letter to the YAM from another alum whose son may be applying next year (<a href="http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/current/letters.html%5B/url%5D):">http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/current/letters.html):</a></p>
<p>*"Yale had more than 19,000 applicants last year. I am sure 18,000 of them could have handled Yale work. Yale could probably fill a class with all 1600-SATs or all string instrument players. Or it could choose to replicate its DNA by having all Yale legacies. That sameness would negatively affect one of the best parts of being a Yale student -- interacting with people of diverse interests and backgrounds. Although Yale parents are obviously a diverse group, their "Yale-ness" clearly creates similarities.</p>
<p>"I have been an Alumni Schools Committee member. Many candidates I recommended highly did not get in. Others did. That didn't make the non-admits any less qualified or talented."*</p>
<p>Yale is a great school. I loved it, and I love that my daughter is there now. But there are many other great schools, and you're wise to encourage your daughter not to put all her eggs in this particular basket. Even though Yale ultimately worked out in my daughter's case, I still wish we'd been able to persuade her to be more open to other possibilities. It might have kept last year from being so excruciating, and made us all feel a lot less helpless.</p>
<p>Yale.edu have you applied?</p>
<p>Yes, but not undergrad. Yale Law School Class of 2008. :)</p>
<p>Georgetown is hot now. Location is perfect, very Ivy feel. Not that much easier than lower Ivies like Penn and Brown.</p>
<p>It was a nice school, but a bit too Catholic for me. I remember vividly on the tour, stopping and looking at a building being introduced as, "This is where all our Jesuits are."</p>
<p>Back in the 1990s, Penn had an acceptance rate around 50%. Funny how the Ivy League has become the be-all of college admissions. Yale's acceptance rate in the 1990s (often above 20%) was higher than Penn's now.</p>
<p>
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It was a nice school, but a bit too Catholic for me. I remember vividly on the tour, stopping and looking at a building being introduced as, "This is where all our Jesuits are."
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</p>
<p>Must have been a very small building..</p>
<p>April is a prime month for suicides for people of all ages in the temperate zone (although the peak is, I'm pretty sure, May). That has little or nothing to do with school admissions decisions or the like. The theory is that seasonal changes disturb the mood state of people with mood disorders. The other modal month for suicide is in October, also around a change of seasons. I'd cite more sources for this but it's been almost a decade since I looked up a lot of this information for a Web page I wrote back then, and I'm sure there are more recent subsequently published sources.</p>
<p>The website indicated as your homepage is very interesting, tokenadult. Thanks... good info.</p>
<p>Yale.edu still trying to explain myself here....regarding mensa160's reference to legacies being a 'scam' and the quotation posted by editrix that Yale could probably fill its class with legacies: perhaps saying that the legacy policy at Yale is a 'scam' is a little dramatic, but given that Levin has stated that he can justify 'legacy' admits and given the fact that there are so many legacy applicants, while the school desires to have diversity in its student body I'd say that the president's attitude can not really be taken too seriously. I'd have to say that Levin would like to keep alums inspired to keep contributing by having them know that Yale values legacies, but the fact is that they can not in fact give legacies much weight and still achieve their goals of diversity. Scam may be too strong a word, but maybe something along the lines of 'a deliberate intent to be misleading' or something along those lines is more accurate.
Good luck with your law school application! I have no idea what the admit stats are for that school but I can assume they're not much less competitive.</p>
<p>I used the word scam. it gets the point across that these guys speak out of both side of their mouths. They want you to know that legacy helps, but they dare not say how little it really is. I'd like to see stats for how legacies from HP do at Yale. If Y lgacies do better by 1 percent over HP I'll be surprised. But of course, neither HYP will ever put out such stats because it would expose the scam on gullible parents.</p>
<p>Well we have probably now cured YaleDad of entering into this venture with any excess of optimism! Which is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.
I'd advise any legacy applying to Yale not to think that they are in any better position than anyone else and to have a good selection of alternative schools for which you have just as much enthusiasm. As I wrote above, reading the stats pages of the applicants who have received their decisions is an excellent reality check.</p>
<p>OK, I misunderstood mensa's original use of the term "scam". I thought she was calling legacy-preferenced admissions a "scam", but she was saying that it may really not exist at Yale and that it is a "scam" not to have legacy-preferenced admissions (while maintaining the appearances of such).</p>
<p>I personally would be very proud of Yale it did turn out to be a "scam" and there is no legacy-based preference. Harvard and Princeton are more deep into the nepotism, and I like to think that Yale is more of a meritocracy than H or P. This seems to have been confirmed somewhat by Yale's legacy acceptance rate versus H's and P's.</p>
<p>I don't think Mensa is right in that H and P legacies get into Y at the same rate as Y legacies. I'd be shocked if the acceptance rate for the children of H and P grads is higher than 18-20%. Just because someone's parents worked hard doesn't mean the children did... the unbiased rate of Yale legacies might be twice the normal rate (say about 20%) but I really do not believe that a 30% acceptance rate for legacies at a school that has a 9% acceptance rate for everyone else is unbiased.</p>
<p>It doesn't seem possible that 30% of HYP children have 4.0 unweighted GPAs or are otherwise worthy of a Y acceptance letter. For one thing, when their HYP parents were in college, it was much easier to get into HYP at that time (even in the 1990s it was easier). The average HYP alumni parent scored in the 1300s on their SAT, and it takes a 1500 to be qualified these days.</p>
<p>
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Yale.edu have you applied?</p>
<p>Yes, but not undergrad. Yale Law School Class of 2008.
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</p>
<p>Just curious, Yale.edu--are you a Yale senior now, or living in New Haven between college and law school?</p>
<p>Legacy admits are not a scam per se, it's the bait and reject that's the scam.</p>
<p>YaleDad, your daughter sounds really cool!</p>
<p>I was admitted EA from a prestigious private school as well, double-legacy (what class are you? My parents are '79 TD), and I have no idea how much my parents donate a year, but honestly I doubt it matters. Legacy is never used as anything more than a tie-breaker, unless your a GWB-style "LEGACY" or a recruited athlete.</p>
<p>My college counselor is brilliant with this kind of thing (she's sent 3 girls to Yale in the past 2 years), and if I were channelling her right now, I would say that it depends on how academically-oriented she is. Yale is, primarily, an academic institution, and they look for people who learn first and pile stuff on top of that. </p>
<p>The second qualification, as the Yale adcoms told my parents at the official Scare The Crap Out of Alum Parents session at their 25th reunion, is being a nice person. Seriously. You get that across in your essays and recs. It's very, very important. If she is, and I believe that anyone who funds their own interests in horses is, then you're basically set.</p>
<p>That said - I would love to talk to her about Yale's equestrian team!! What kind of riding does she do - huntseat? I've been riding at the Y Polo and Equestrian Center since I was 11, and it's... an interesting place. The Athletic Department's best underfunded facility. If she's interested in doing real quality riding in college, I might suggest Bryn Mawr or Mt. Holyoke instead - both women's schools, but as a product of an all-girls high school, I mos def recommend them, and their riding programs are amazing.</p>
<p>Wow, sorry, I'm going on a million tangents. So, yeah, Yale is not the best place for riding, and you have to fund all of your own riding. The equestrian team cannot use Yale's collapsing riding facilities, so they go to stables about 20 minutes away, which seems to be working for them, but is definitely something she should investigate. (My project, by the way, is to change all of that... but we'll see).</p>
<p>However, to ensure that she'll get in... the best thing she can do is just BE HERSELF. Get involved in lots of stuff, but do it well. If she's true to herself, she'll end up at the best possible place for her. I'm sure people have told you that before, but I can't emphasize it enough. Colleges, especially Yale, can see right through kids who try to shape themselves into the perfect applicant. The most key part of her application will probably be her essays, where she'll have to show what an interesting, fun, deep-thinking person she is. </p>
<p>I think I've babbled on long enough... It would be great if she got onto CC and talked to people herself, though! I've been one of those 'destined for Yale' legacies my whole life, since I grew up in New Haven and everything, and the healthiest and most helpful thing that I did for myself during the admissions process was to stop talking to my parents all-together about it. Honestly, it's really great that you're trying to help her, but she'll feel best and be most comfortable if she does all the work and makes the decision all on her own. I don't think I can emphasize that enough!!</p>
<p>Anyway, she does sound great, and I would love to welcome her into the Self-Doubting Legacies Club next year!! If you or she wants to e-mail me or any of the large group of Yale student contacts I have, feel free - <a href="mailto:abernstein@emmawillard.org">abernstein@emmawillard.org</a>
Good luck!
Alyssa</p>