My chances at Yale?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

<p>I'm currently an IB Junior and I'm concerned whether or not I have a good chance at one of my dream schools. I'm a first generation student and I'm Mexican/French/American. I'm also in the top 10% (46/575)</p>

<p>Here are my stats:
(I was told that colleges look at semester grades which are the final grades including midterms and finals.)</p>

<p>Freshmen Year:
English 1 Honors: A
AVID: A
Geometry Honors: C (Bad, I know.)
Biology Honors: A
AP Human Geography: A
Medical Skills: A
Guitar 1: A</p>

<p>Sophomore Year:
French 1: A
English 2 Honors: A
Algebra 2 Honors: B
AVID 2: A
Chemistry 1 Honors: A
AP World History: A
Health Science 1: A</p>

<p>Junior year: (I did not take any Pre-IB courses except for my Pre-IB French 2, but the district is trying to change me to IB French 4, so hopefully Yale sees that I'm a risk-taker. Also, these grades are from last quarter, not the final grades.)
Pre-IB French 2: B
TOK IB: A
English 3 IB: A
IB Pre-Calc: A
BIO 2 IB: B
AP Environmental Science: B
IB American History: B</p>

<p>GPA: (Weighted) 3.97, (Unweighted) 3.63</p>

<p>I'm trying to achieve in getting straight A's for the rest of the year and to boost up my GPA.</p>

<p>Leadership:
President of Debate Club
VP of Junior Class Student Council
2 Years of Captain of the Water Polo team
President of Fellowship of Christian Athletes</p>

<p>Volunteering:
Teen Court 300+ hours (I'm a Prosecutor Teen Court Attorney)
Gift for Teaching 100+ hours
Mill Creek Elementary Tutor
Cypress Creek Elementary Tutor
NeoSoul (We help single mom's in washing their cars and getting them free oil changes)
Disney's Half Marathon 2013
Internship at the Court House</p>

<p>Clubs/Organizations:
Fellowship of Christian Athletes (3 years, 4 since I'm staying there for senior year)
National Honors Society (3 years, including senior year)
Neo Prayer Team
Varsity Cross Country (Four years including senior year)
Varsity Water Polo (Two years including senior year)
Glee Club (3 years)
Debate Club (3 years)</p>

<p>Awards:
A/B Honor Roll
Straight A's Honor Roll
Disney Dream and Doer
Take-Stock in Scholarship
Teen Attorney Scholarship</p>

<p>Talents:
Harp player (5 years)
Piano player (3 years)
Guitar player (2 years)
Violin (4 years)
I can also speak Spanish, French, Swedish, and Romanian fluently.</p>

<p>I have yet to take the SAT/ACT/SAT Subject Tests in the spring and I'm working on getting my scores to be qualified for Yale. (2200-2300)
I'm interested in majoring in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology. (I love Science)</p>

<p>I know they're Holistic and hopefully they can see more of a person instead of an applicant in my essay. I'm thinking about writing about my childhood, aka Disney since I'm a HUGE fan, more so on Peter Pan. Either that or how complicated it was to be a legal citizen in US, to be called an immigrant.</p>

<p>I would like honest responses! :) Thank you so much!</p>

2

<p>Your GPA is not great, being perfectly honest. </p>

<p>ECs aren’t amazing and they don’t really show much focus.</p>

<p>If you really pull through with your SAT, I think it would be a mid reach for you.</p>

3

<p>Yale routinely turns away students with perfect stats: vals with ACT 36 / SAT 2400. For a school like Yale, holistic actual works against you, because they get enough applicants with near-perfect stats plus noteworthy EC achievements at the state or national level. They are not going to accept you because you’re nice or try really hard.</p>

<p>I’d suggest you give it a shot, along with a broad range of schools with much higher acceptance rates, but don’t let your self-confidence ride on whether or not you get accepted – the competition on a national level is brutal and the number of spots is extremely limited.</p>

4

<p>You have a rigorous course load, good GPA, nice extra curriculars, and seems to be pretty into debate. However, what makes you different from everyone else? Thousands of kids have the same application as you. How do you stand out from the crowd?</p>

<p>-orangesrule108</p>

5

<p>I don’t want to parrot what everyone else is saying, but unless if you have an extremely unique story to tell, Yale will be a high reach. Apply widely to similar schools of lower selectivity such as Boston College, Northeastern, etc.</p>

6

<p>Your rigor of classes is good but your GPA is very low for Yale! Try to aim for a 2300+ on the SAT and also have very good letters of recommendations and great EC’s! Also, your essay needs to be top notch if you want to have a chance of getting into Yale but even then I’d say Yale is a Reach for you because of your GPA! Don’t worry though Yale is a Reach for everyone so just do your best and have faith! Good luck!</p>