Malaysian student - Chance me?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Yale University
1

<p>Hi, so I applied to Yale RD about two months ago - I'm a student from Malaysia, I did IB, and Yale has been just about everything I've worked for over the past two years, so.... Stats.</p>

<p>GPA: No GPA
Class rank: 1/42
Predicted grade for IB: 45/45
SPM/IGCSE: 6A* 2A 1A-.
SAT I: 2360. 800 CR 790 math, 770 writing with 11 essay.
SAT II: Math IIC, Chemistry, Physics, 800 800 800
Essays: One about Facebook, another about starting a business, and another about lego blocks. Go figure - I tried not to show off, and most of them were quite personal.
Yale essay about how I hated speaking Malay, but eventually turned into a Malay debater. Could have submitted one about Chinese identity hmm.</p>

<p>Interview: Really great. Tripped up on a question about books, but eventually had a really nice conversation about dead people, poets, kings, revolutionaries, and about how we know what we know. :)</p>

<p>ECA(s):</p>

<p>Language study: 6 languages spoken, learnt, including English, Chinese, Malay, French, Japanese, Spanish.</p>

<p>Hobbie(s): Yoyo, drawing, basketball, guitar - Videos posted on Youtube, but not submitted as arts supplement. Wrote about yoyos for ECA essay.</p>

<p>Tutoring: 2 hours tutoring Japanese immigrants in English for two years.</p>

<p>Debate/Model UN: Club president for two years, have taken part, and won, best speaker awards from six different tournaments.</p>

<p>Editorial board: Head writer/editor, two years.</p>

<p>Academic awards: Several for best academic student, some science olympiad awards here and there that probably aren't recognized in America.</p>

<p>National military service - 3 months.</p>

<p>Do I have a chance? My high school academic track record isn't amazing, and I'm just thinking, what if. LOL.</p>

2

<p>Subjects taken: Math, Chemistry, Physics HL, English, Economics, French ab initio SL.</p>

3

<p>How can you not say your acad track record isn’t amazing when your predicted grades for IB is a 45… Well, your SATs are really solid and well within the range, congrats on that! </p>

<p>Do you have any other ECs? Did your application have any particular focus… like an aspect of what you do? Even more importantly, how were your teacher recs? You ought to know though that tons of students will have the same stats as you. Did you do anything that might help differentiate you from the rest of the applicant pool, besides your being an international applicant?</p>

4

<p>Overall, I tried to convey myself as someone personable, not flashy - Someone you would want to see not simply as another member of the academic community, but as a friend, a human being, another someone who’s fought for opportunity for all these long, hard years, and whom you would do something amazing with. I’m not sure about the extent to which I succeeded, since it’s difficult to evaluate, but I tried my best.</p>

<p>I really can’t be sure that I managed to convey everything about myself, because I really didn’t know what I should convey that I wouldn’t be able to in an interview. More likely than not, there were a lot of things left unsaid in my application. As much as I understand that the ethos behind sending in a college essay is to cause the adcom to faint in joy and tear up, I didn’t really write about anything flashy in the essays I wrote. Instead, I talked about lighthearted things - Giving up Facebook, not being able to do simple things. In retrospect, though, I think that the interview was the single best part of my application.</p>

<p>I DID add a link to my personal blog, though I’m not sure whether they’ll put it into consideration.</p>

<p>So how different am I from the rest of the applicant pool? Everyone thinks they’re special… And most likely, they ARE special in some way, shape, form, whether in skillset or in ideas. I do have ideas to contribute - I will engage you in a conversation about life, the universe, and lady gaga - I am, beneath everything I write about awards, and test scores, just another teenager trying to make sense of the world, and I think that that at heart, this is what all of us are. </p>

<p>All I did was convey my side of the story… I’d like to believe that Yale likes what it sees so far, because not everyone in my country gets an interview.</p>

5

<p>I can only hope that it likes me enough to send me an admission letter on the first. D:</p>

6

<p>I can gauge that with what you said, our applications are pretty similar in nature. My essay’s lighthearted too - I didn’t attempt force the cathartic kind. In general, a lot of things are really unsaid in an application - the goal is for you to show the adcoms yourself in the best possible light, and judging by what you’ve said so far, you’ve been able to portray yourself as a real person and not just someone who’s accumulated all these academic accolades and test scores. With everything, I think you have a pretty solid chance, but then again, it’s Yale, and we’ll never know 'til April 1st. </p>

<p>Check out your teacher recs though. I noticed that since so much value is placed on the student part of the application here on CC, not much is emphasized on the teacher recs. Harvard’s dean of admissions highlighted in an article on the NY Times the extreme importance of the teacher recs to the overall application. I think once you get a glance of them, you’ll be able to gauge your chances better. Good luck to you!!</p>

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<p>@Synxervious- just wondering, how did you submit 5 essays to yale? dont they ask for just one apart from the two commonapp ones?</p>

<p>oh and as for the chancing, the admissions are way too unpredictable… but i sure would admit you if i were an adcom… you seem pretty impressive, even on paper :slight_smile: but who knows though?</p>

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<p>Thanks guys!</p>

<p>@Bluetree2: I submitted an extra ECA essay and an additional essay(The lego block one). Add on the common app essay, the yale essay, and you have five pieces of writing.</p>

<p>God, I really want to get in. It’s like you fight for opportunity for so many years, and everything’s just hanging on a precipice of fate. I used to think that winning the SAT race was everything, much like everyone here - But I guess that for me, the fear is still very real, average Yale SAT score or not - Simply because I’m watching, waiting for a lifelong dream to come true.</p>