I just wanted to chime in. I agree with OP mentioning more “community feel” for Yale. And this is not just while you are there. In some way, you carry Yale community the rest of your life, if you opt in. How do I know? I went to Yale. My sister in law went to Harvard. The way we interact with 4 years of our pasts seems fundamentally different. For my sis, her college remains on her resume and in her brain. For me, my college still meets once a month through zoom. We throw in everything that makes us happy or sad or angry or worried. There are nationally famous guys and absolute unknowns like myself, but it does not matter one bit - we go back to the Old Campus the day we arrived. My sis has been envious of this, so I asked her why don’t they start and she said the H folks are simply not as cohesive and this cannot be forced. I agree. I am not saying one is better than the other; I am just saying the way they respectively are. If you are a Yalie and dislike meeting your old classmates, you can always opt out. But you have the choice to opt in as well, and that’s where the value proposition is. Yalies are intense, passionate, and have big hearts, on average.
hey were you ever able to view your admissions file? if so what’re some things you gleaned from it as far as what got you in? thanks for doing this!
Interesting. This was my son’s approach - except that it wasn’t an approach, it just happened, naturally, because he was, well, passionate about it. A very big spike in instrumental performance music. His GPA was 4.18W out of a max of 4.4W/maybe 3.6UW out of 4.0. Nowhere near first in his class at a good suburban public school. ACT 36. Had the occasional B, especially in math. Mostly highest rigor coursework. He got into Harvard EA, decided to go, and withdrew his other apps and didn’t finish Yale/YSM, and Columbia/Juilliard. I had read that the spike was the way to go - and it clearly worked.
I do not believe that these hyper-selective institutions are looking for “well-rounded” individuals, with fantastic grades, fantastic SATs, class president, editor of the paper, and captain of the X-ctry team. They have many applicants like that, so many that they could fill the class ten times over with them. I believe that they are looking for students who have excellent grades and SATs, plus unusually high achievement in some other field of interest, that implies that this person is going to achieve something outstanding in life, and reflect well on the institution.
Got to disagree with this. These schools look for all types, both the spikey and the well rounded (but well rounded with super high achievements across the board). FWIW, S and all of his friends at his HYP that I know are of the well rounded variety. For the most part, they were also cross admitted into multiple T20’s. That has also been my experience as an interviewer for over 25 years. I would agree that if you do have a major spike, it is easier to stand out, but if you otherwise are unremarkable (below the XYZ college median), you may be competing for a very limited “slot”, e.g. only so many spots for the great tuba player.
Goes without saying that the great tuba player also has to have great stats. But given the requisite great stats, that are almost as necessary as submitting an application, I believe that they are taking the kids with national level achievement in a specific field of interest, rather than the kids who have great stats and broad achievement confined to their high school - such as heading a couple of clubs and co-captaining a sports team. Even the kid with perfect grades, perfect scores, and head of student council and captain of a sports team is not necessarily getting in.
How many “Ask me how I did it” threads do you see where the theme is, “I have no idea why they took me at HYPSM other than the many, many others with similar achievements to mine.” Most of the people who were admitted have excellent stats plus either a hook or a spike.
Lets do some simple math and take even just the T10. The avg entering class size call it 1,500, so there are 15,000 students. Let’s eliminate legacies and athletes (although some/many of these may also be national award winners), about 25%, leaving us with 11,250. Let’s take out URMs (again many may also be national award winners), call it another 25% so we have 7,500 remaining unhooked admitted students. There are not close to 7,500 national level awards. Many (maybe even a majority) of students who have national level awards may not go to T10’s or even T20’s. They may opt for in state flagship honors programs or privates that give them major merit scholarships. I agree the kid with a 4.0, 1500+ SAT, and some school and maybe even district/city level awards/recognition are not going to immediately stand out, but maybe they will get an LoR or write an essay or have other circumstances that really resonates. We get such limited information on any internet based “why I got in/rejected” stories, I don’t see how you can make such a sweeping statement on national level awards. I have done several post mortems with the Yale AO over the years, and the common theme isn’t the kid won “XYZ”, but there was something about the whole app that was consistent and made me think that the kid would be an asset to the class.
You’d be surprised at how many students there are who have made their mark on a national level in high school. Remember - you don’t have to be THE top person in the country, or in the world, and remember, there are international students applying too, who ARE the top students in their countries, because those silly little countries still have highly competitive performance-based college matriculation exams, instead of “everybody gets a trophy” cultures.
Top players in each musical instrument, in all different types of music. Top level in each science, in math, art, composition, history, creative writing, poetry, debate, model UN, the list goes on and on. Top achievers in acting, musical theater, vocal music. Top achievers in sports which are not recruited-athlete sports, such Olympic sports which are not played at colleges. Presidential scholars. There are so many top awards that people don’t know about. Sure, the kid also has to have a good essay, but the essays are often not reflections of the student’s own work. There’s an entire industry of English teachers helping kids buff their essays. They have to have some sort of community involvement, but this isn’t that hard to do, especially when it’s related to kid’s primary area of achievement. “I placed in the top ten in a national chess competition, and I started a club with the best chess players at my high school to bring chess to inner city elementary schools just across the city line from my excellent suburban high school”. Plus there are kids who started charities that really do have an impact citywide, or even across the nation. There are so many ways in which a kid can make her mark on a national level, and if they have excellent grades and scores, it’s not too hard to make the rest of the application shine. After all, that’s what those expensive admissions counselors are paid to do.
Now consider that there are private prep schools in the country that seem to have a pipeline into the top schools. I think that some 1/3 of seats go to these students, although of course there is overlap with legacies, recruited athletes in sports that most public schools don’t have, and children of big donors. So say we’re left with fewer than 7500 seats - maybe 5000, for the public school kids. And I bet you that there are 5000 kids with top grades and top scores, who have also achieved at the national level in SOMETHING. They are going to be given most of those seats, because they have top level academics and scores, PLUS national level achievement in something.
So now we get to the public schools, of which the US has some 24000 schools. 24000 valedictorians. 48000 if we want to count the salutatorians, too. 72000 if we count the top 3. And of course, some of those public schools are Bronx Science, Stuyvesant, Boston Latin, and other well-known, highly ranked “exam” schools. The top 10% at those schools are highly qualified too. All of them with excellent grades. Some with high test scores, although who knows whether those would ever be mandatory again. Most of them also leading clubs, captaining sports teams, editing the newspaper, leading student council, being elected class president, leading school volunteer groups. There are very few seats left for these kids - and how do you tell them apart from one another? They all have excellent qualifications and EC achievements at the school or local level. There are probably over 100,000 of them, competing for fewer than 5000 seats - since the legacies, donor kids, URMs, top prep school kids, best in their country kids, and best in their special field of interest kids have taken most of those seats.
At this point, it’s a crap shoot. NOW it’s whose incredible essay (written hopefully by the student) grabs them. NOW it’s the kid with the amazing film supplement (film maker big brother makes a film about his brother’s high school life) who gets in - which I never understood - shouldn’t it have been the big brother who MADE the film, to get in? There are now so few seats left, that now it’s really a crap shoot, because THESE are the highly qualified candidates with whom the schools could fill the seats ten times over. Great grades, great scores, nice local EC achievements. Most of them not getting in.
This Yale student’s spike was so big that he cannot say what it is, or he’d reveal his identity. THAT is what got him in. Sure, he had great grades, a very nice ACT. But if what he’d done was made All-State for something, it wouldn’t dox him to reveal it. LOTS of people make All-State for something. The ones with the great grades and scores and class president aren’t getting in. Regionals for something aren’t getting in. Even All State for something aren’t getting in. All National? Maybe yes. Olympic level? Even more so maybe yes, probably yes, even if it’s for ice dancing, which last I knew was not a collegiate sport. Local science award? Nope. Intel Science top ten? Very possibly yes.