<p>Decision: Accepted</p>
<p>Objective:[ul]
[<em>] SAT I (breakdown): 2280 (720 CR, 760 M, 800 W). Took once.
[</em>] ACT: None
[<em>] SAT II: US History 790, Math 1 750, Bio (forget whether E or M) 690
[</em>] Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.98 9th grade, 3.95 10th grade, 4.0 11th grade
[<em>] Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): My school doesn’t rank, though I think I was first out of about 50
[</em>] AP (place score in parenthesis): APUSH (5), US Gov & Politics (5), French (5)
[<em>] IB (place score in parenthesis): None
[</em>] Senior Year Course Load: Full Year: AP Stats, English, AP Chem, French Lit & Film. 1st semester: Russian Studies, independent study about American humorists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 2nd semester: Creative Writing
[li] Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): National Merit Semifinalist, AP Scholar</p>[/li]
<p>[/ul]Subjective:[ul]
[<em>] Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis): Founder and executive director of a student anti-bullying educational advocacy group called The Teaching Peace Initiative, school newspaper (Editor-In-Chief), Model Congress (Club President, four gavel awards in committee, two honorable mentions in full, elected President of Princeton Model Congress), Theatre (leads and supporting in both plays and musicals), Upper School Student Forum (elected student gov position), Upper School Disciplinary Committee (selected by head of upper school). Had a few more but there wasn’t enough space for them on the common app, and I didn’t want to seem overbearing by attaching an additional resume.
[</em>] Job/Work Experience: Intern for a congressional campaign over the summer, worked as a private tutor with several clients (including crafting and teaching my own high school prep course), and as a teen columnist for a local blog for freshman through junior year
[<em>] Volunteer/Community service: 300+ hours as a spring swimming coach with the special olympics, 7th-12th grade.
[</em>] Summer Activities: Working as a tutor and a campaign intern, several summers taking classes with Johns Hopkins’ Center for Talented Youth, where I also served as a student leader.
[<em>] Essays: Common app one made teachers and friends laugh out loud–about a love poem I’d written to a girl in fifth grade, where, thinking that I was telling her she was my reason for being, I called her “the bane of my existence.” Used the anecdote as a segway into my love for rhetoric and playing with language, and how I hoped to apply it in the future.
Why Yale was about staying 2 nights on campus in September and the wonderful environment that was there, the people who were so friendly, welcoming, driven and brilliant, and the abundance of awesome things to do.
Supplement for Yale was about working as a student leader at CTY’s Dickinson summer site, talking about how the vibrant, intellectual community had given me confidence in myself as a preteen and how I enjoyed giving back to it–and saying that I wanted to go to Yale for the same sense of fun, intellectual community, and promised to do all that I could to give back to the place that I knew would do so much for me.
[</em>] Teacher Recommendation: One (advisor and history teacher) described his to me as “a fantastic recommendation that is sure to get you into Yale.” The other’s (bio teacher) was, I suppose, more generic.
[<em>] Counselor Rec: Our school is small so our counselor didn’t have to write a lot of recs, and mine was one of the first he wrote, so probably pretty good.
[</em>] Additional Rec: Additional rec from the program director of the CTY summer site where I was a student leader, who I worked with to coordinate the student-led traditions. Didn’t read it, but I assume that it was pretty good and matched up well with my supplement essay.
[<em>] Interview: Did it in February, so it was very early in the process and my first interview. Wasn’t as polished as I would have been later, but on the flipside I guess I seemed more raw & genuine. Still hit all the main points.
[/ul]Other[ul]
[</em>] Applied for Financial Aid?: Yes; did not receive
[<em>] Intended Major: Wasn’t asked, didn’t state (I’m undecided, though I’m sure they could tell from my app that I’ll go humanities, probably english/polisci)
[</em>] State (if domestic applicant): MD
[<em>] Country (if international applicant):
[</em>] School Type: Small (~50 per grade), private
[<em>] Ethnicity: Caucasian
[</em>] Gender: M
[<em>] Income Bracket: 200k+
[</em>] Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.): My dad is a retiring US Congressman (though I didn’t leverage this in any way beyond listing it under “occupation” in the parents’ section–didn’t mention it in an essay or anything, so I doubt it did anything for me–I didn’t really want it to, I wanted to get in on merit and not because of my family).</p>
<p>[/ul]Reflection[ul]
[<em>] Strengths: Essays, GPA, extracurriculars, and (I assume), recs.
[</em>] Weaknesses: I’m seeing people deferred with higher test scores than me; I guess mine were good but not great (though past 2250 who’s to say). Haven’t taken tons of APs, not too many major awards, and consistent volunteering but not a lot of hours altogether.
[li] Why you think you were accepted/deferred/denied: I just tried to present myself as i was. No idea why they liked what they saw, but I guess they did, and I’m incredibly happy!</p>[/li]
<p>[/ul]General Comments:
There were so many people who deserve to get in and didn’t–I’m really sorry, and I hope they see their mistake in April and that we can be classmates. I’m so psyched to be into Yale, I accepted their offer the same night and now I can’t wait for Bulldog Days. Really excited to meet everyone who’s in, and, of course, excited to be a Yalie. Doesn’t get any better than this!
Hope this is helpful to people. Good luck to everyone applying regular decision!</p>
My sincere congratulations to all who were accepted, and to those who were not, we’ll all end up somewhere where we’ll be happy.</p>