<p>I'm a white male with parents who have both been to college. I really want to go to Yale and am seeing if I have a chance. :) </p>
<p>Stats
Unweighted GPA: 4.0
Weighted GPA: 5.2
SAT:2260
Subject tests haven't taken yet but planning on taking 2-3 In the sciences.
May take the ACT this year.
Ranked 2 out of 419 because orchestra pulled me down.
Did The IB program our school offers focusing on biology in my final essay.
5's in AP Euro, AP Us Gov, AP Comp, AP Lit, AP Calc with subscore of 5, AP Bio, AP Psych, AP Environmental Science
Really good recommendations from many teachers/counselors</p>
<p>EC's
4 years tennis ( 3JV, 1varsity)
Academic all state tennis
6 years playing tennis on my country club team
Formerly in many plays at my high school when I was younger. (Thinking about applying to become a thespian.)
2years elementary school choir lol.
9 years total school orchestra playing viola, final one I will be principal chair and we are planning to win state as we've gotten third the past few year but are exceptionally good this year.
3 year orchestra varsity letter
6years county youth symphony, principal chair final year.
Multiple gold ratings in state solo ensemble.
2 years All-State orchestra
4 years school student renaissance, 3 being a Leader.
3 years School Dance Marathon, 2 as an exec member.
Served on sophomore, junior, and senior executive (we planned prom, etc.)
Served as junior exec treasurer and senior exec president
3 years on student council, treasurer last year, president this year,
(My main BAE haha) 4 years speech and debate. 2 years as captain. 4time national tournament qualifier and I made it to the top 60 in us extemp this past tourney.
4 time sectional champion in speech
Got third at state in us extemp and fifth in impromptu
Academic all state in speech and debate.
District student of the year in speech and debate.
9 year 4h member where I've shown Chickens, pigs, horses, rabbits, goats, and gotten multiple grand and reserve champions. Also am the 2 year president of the 4h Junior leaders in my county and My personal 4H club.
Won Master showmanship in which you compete showing every animal and take a written test.
Named Mr. Gordon High which lists the most well-rounded senior guy and girl st school.
4 years in One World United club where we celebrate diversity and have a big picnic of all the languages at our school every year.
5 year Science Olympiad member with 5 Top 5 medals.</p>
<p>Anything else I may have forgot just ask but I'm just trying to get a rough estimate. I know I didn't build a million dollar business or save thousands of orphans but I'm hoping this is at least competitive in some of thiese Ivies haha.</p>
<p>From what I’ve heard (not much but still) it sounds like you would definitely have a good chance. ECs are very important. But again, I don’t know much about this. You should probably talk to people who have been accepted to Ivies or have recently graduated.</p>
<p>@InsideOutTwinkie, you don’t think OP should apply to Yale, but somehow you want to apply to Wharton with much worse credentials? What does that say about you?</p>
<p>OP, I think you are a fair applicant and should give Yale a try. Good luck.</p>
<p>You need to do something to stand out – I am no expert, but I recommend writing about 4H and have fun with it. I have never seen a high-end applicant on CC who shows farm animals. If somehow you could tie it in with other stuff on your resume such as the 4H leadership or you play your viola for the animals or used your animals to relate to someone without exposure to them otherwise or something that you did special related to 4H, that would be good. You could be more creative than that regarding the animals in an essay, but I would leave that up to you to work out.</p>
<p>You definitely have as much of a chance as any other kid applying to Ivies. As they’ll tell you at a Yale info session, 80% of the kids that apply are probably well qualified and could thrive at Yale. You are certainly among those kids. Your scores are great, and you’re certainly smart enough to get in and to thrive there. Will you get in? Well, there’s absolutely no way to know because kids that seem way more qualified will be denied, while kids with lower stats than you will get in. At highly selective colleges, it’s impossible to be sure that you’ll get in, even if all of your scores are perfect, but you certainly won’t get in unless you apply. You have a good shot- you should definitely apply if you want to go.</p>
<p>@Struggleman - HYPS would be what I have started calling a “credentialed reach” for you. In other words, you have the credentials, it seems, but these schools still admit well less than half the applicants that have the same resume (essentially) of kids that do get accepted. I strongly agree with those that say cut that list of EC’s way down. Obviously ditch the reference to elementary school, just like when you start applying for jobs out of college you don’t mention anything from high school. They don’t care about that stuff. Too much detail, like mentioning 9 years of playing viola in the orchestra. Just say: Principal violist, school orchestra and county youth orchestra. You don’t have to say you are planning to win state, you don’t have to say you are principal in your final year. They will get all the information they need from that simple, short statement. Less is more. Try and group your EC’s by type. Music, school leadership, academic EC’s. You want it to come across that you have 3-5 areas that you really are “passionate” about. Overused word, but that is the idea. You don’t want them thinking you are a mile wide and an inch deep, and presentation is important as to which impression they get.</p>
<p>I also recommend you get away from the “humble brag” such as
Come on, man. That just comes across all wrong. Be proud of what you have achieved, and just be matter of fact about it. Kind of like the whole title of the thread. If you aren’t a candidate, who is? In the history of applications to the Ivies, no one has cured cancer or published a best seller. At least not one that wasn’t plagiarized. You know your resume is great, so you should have titled this that you were looking for advice on maximizing your application. It doesn’t come across as having an inflated ego to know you have a great record.</p>
<p>@fallenchemist I posted this as more of an informal thing that took about ten minutes. I honestly didn’t know how good (or bad) my resume was and I just wanted to get a good idea of whether or not i was qualified. After reading these comments I’ll try to definitely take out stuff like the elementary school choir, and I added in that “orchestra pulled me down comment” more for the sake of copying other posters who “explain” their ranks thinking it was a norm. Thanks for the good advice and I’ll definitely take it into consideration. :)</p>
<p>With a 4.0 UW, 2260 SAT, and decent ECs there isn’t a reason not to apply if you have aspirations to attend Yale. You just have to remember that you probably won’t get in, just like a large portion of the other qualified applicants. But someone has to get in, right? Good luck! </p>
<p>I’m gonna make an updated, more organized version of this that looks more like my official application soon. That should hopefully clarify some of these bad wordings and unneeded details I added haha.</p>
<p>@Struggleman - That sounds like a great idea. Question: Your title says “Prestigious schools” but then you focus on Yale, which of course is great. Nothing wrong with having a favorite. But it always bothers me a little bit when people make it sound like their only criterion for choosing a college is prestige, the name brand, the elite reputation, call it what you will. Don’t get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Yale, Harvard, Dartmouth, Stanford, Duke, etc. for the right person, and that obviously could be you. But some of these schools have really different qualities than the others. So what is it that you are looking for in a school that it would make no difference to you if you went to Yale than if you went to Stanford? I am putting words in your mouth there; I know you didn’t actually say that. But it is an inference that could be made. Anyway, something to think about. Or not.</p>
<p>You’re qualified for any school in the country (Yale included).
In the case of Yale >90% of qualified applicants are rejected, but you have just as good a chance as anybody else.</p>
<p>@soze - Yale admitted 7% of just under 30,000 applicants last year. I think it is a stretch to postulate that only 3% were unqualified from the start. I would be willing to bet that at least 1/3, and maybe as many as half are easily put aside after a cursory look at the application. Still, that would still leave thousands of qualified applicants with being denied admission every year. With 2,000 slots available, they have to deny some of the brightest students in the world.</p>
<p>Yeah, you don’t have a chance. Look at your ECs. Going down the list, I see the numbers 46293624334945 at the beginning of the lines that start with numbers. You’re clearly discriminating against 1, 7, and even 8 there, bud. Time to get off the bigotry wagon. The top schools don’t like to invite mathematical Nazis into their ranks; many of their top professors love the numbers that you have so ostracized through your extracurriculars.</p>
<p>“Should I even apply?” Of course not. You haven’t even won a Nobel Prize like everyone else on CollegeConfidential. What, did orchestra prevent that?</p>
<p>Anyway, I suppose you can offset your sad lack of a Nobel Prize or Fields Medal by raising your SAT to a 2450 (which you can get by pressing up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-B-A on the essay portion). A Yale admissions officer might skim over your application before they roll it up into toilet paper. Send them a few bottles of whiskey so that they’ll get drunk enough that they might actually accept you. That raises your chances to a good 0.05%. Good luck.</p>
<p>I was a bit heavy, yes, but my sarcasm was more of a reaction to the poster’s “humble brag” tone, which you pointed out in one of your posts. My post was mainly a nod in that direction. The poster is clearly qualified, and he clearly knows he is qualified because he already intends to apply to Yale, but the title of his post is still “Should I even apply for prestigious schools?” To me, that says he just wants people to stroke his ego. High achievers would best learn how to present their accomplishments to others — as you said, a “matter of fact” tone would have been better, and genuine humility has a better effect than the poster’s form of self-deprivation (that 2 out of 419 comment, for example). Humor is a better way to illustrate this point than outright saying it. It’s like how the jester was the bearer of bad news in the king’s court. Thus, my point would come across to the poster in a subtler way without being unnecessarily confrontational. Now, clearly, explaining this in a full paragraph takes away any value from the post, but I am happy to oblige those that have trouble reading between the lines.</p>
But again, I don’t know much about this. You should probably talk to people who have been accepted to Ivies or have recently graduated.</p>