Should I bother applying to Yale?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Yale University
1

<p>I'm a senior. I had an incredibly rough time emotionally junior year and that horribly affected all of my grades, AP test scores, and my first SAT score (I took the October 1 test this year, and I expect that I did much better). My rough time dropped my gpa and rank (I went from 3rd out of roughly 650 to 11th). I got C's and D's for most of the year in
AP Calc AB, and low C's for most of the year in AP Chemistry. Low A's for History, and mid-to-high A's in English and Anatomy. Before junior year, I had an A+ or A in every class but math, where I typically received anywhere from 92-96%.</p>

<p>I have never really been rank or gpa-obsessive, but most of the schools I want to go to are Ivies or otherwise highly competitive. My question is whether or not I stand a valid chance of getting into these schools despite my less-than-stellar school records junior year. I know that institutions will say that they take these things into consideration, but my parents are not so optimistic. Any input on what my chances are, or how I might be able to alleviate the problem?</p>

<p>Other info: I want to go into environmental engineering or systems engineering, probably combined with some kind of business or economics degree. For the duration of my high school career, I have never taken a course that was not Honors or AP. I have 4+ courses in every major academic area, minus English (I tested out of senior-level English and am taking a University-level introductory linguistics course instead).</p>

<p>Senior courses:
AP Calc BC
AP Physics II
Honors Chinese (fifth year)
Linguistics (online course)
AP Comparative Government
AP US Government (1st semester), AP Microeconomics (2nd semester)</p>

<p>Predicted SAT scores (based on a practice SAT I took before the October test):
Reading: 750-780
Writing: 780-800
Math: 700-750</p>

<p>I have lots of extracurricular activities, but the main ones have been rugby, writing poetry and short stories, Science Olympiad (I'm captain this year), playing the cello, and serving as technical coordinator and pronouncer for the local North South Foundation junior and senior spelling bees.</p>

<p>Do I stand a reasonable chance of admission into the Ivies and similarly competitive schools?</p>

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<p>A bad junior year doesn’t help. A weak SAT isn’t very important if you do much better the second time. You don’t have much time to rebuild your high school transcript, but 11th in your class isn’t terrible, and you might be able to move back up. The problem is that an Ivy adcom has so many talented applicants who had great junior years that they don’t need to take chances on people who hit an ill-timed bump in the road.</p>

<p>Maybe you could overcome that with a very persuasive essay about what happened and what you learned. Or, you could consider a postgraduate year at one of the schools that offer it (Google can help), which might allow you to show a dramatic upward trend. (It was a while ago, but one of my Yale roommates did that – he didn’t think he could have got in otherwise.)</p>

<p>I know it’s hard to believe in the current climate where HS seniors are obsessed with getting into the best school possible, but the evidence consistently shows that where you go to college matters much less than how well you take advantage of the opportunities wherever you go. There are many very good places that would love to have you – but the Ivies are a long shot for just about everyone.</p>