What are my chances for Yale SCEA?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Yale University
1

Look, I know there’s no lack of vanity and chest-beating on CollegeConfidential, and in the world in general, and I’m sincerely not trying to add to it unnecessarily. That being said, I would like the genuine opinion of those who are well-versed in the college admissions process on the situation I’m in now, not because I seek to aggrandize myself over the internet, but because I need some helpful advice.

Okay, so I decided, like many other high-achieving students, to try for early admission to a reach school. The thing is, I don’t know whether to go for a singular reach school (Yale) or multiple simultaneously (Dartmouth and UChicago, as UChicago has non-restrictive EA and Dartmouth’s ED policy would allow me to apply to UChicago as well). I love all three schools, and feel I would be happy for four years at any of them, but I’m leaning a bit toward Yale simply because I believe the student body will be simply incredible, and therefore conducive to my growth as a student, thinker, and human being. So given the following information, is it worth me applying to Yale in the early round, or should I go with the combination of Dartmouth’s ~28% ED acceptance rate + whatever my early chances at UChicago are?

Weighted GPA: 4.89/5.00
Class Rank: Not sure, probably in the top 5
SAT: 1560
SAT II:
Math Level II: 800
U.S. History: 750
Literature: 740
AP:
APUSH: 5
Lang & Comp: 5
Physics I: 4

Extracurriculars:
Music:
-Pianist in school jazz band since sixth grade (total of seven years, including senior year).
-Volunteer pianist at local nursing home, in addition to a Make-A-Wish Foundation event and a gala at a local museum
-Paid event pianist at the same museum (happening this October)
-Participant in week-long jazz camp two summers ago
-Pianist for senior class play’s pit orchestra two years ago
-Pianist for school Chamber Orchestra
Sports:
-Indoor and outdoor track for two years, including varsity both years and a regional championship qualification one year for outdoor track
-Cross-country in sophomore and junior years
-Soccer in freshman year
-Baseball in freshman year
Writing:
-Editor at international, high-school run literary magazine called Polyphony H.S. for two years (including this year)
-Writer, with poems published in The Tower Journal and likely in Polyphony H.S., and with four articles published on TeenInk
-Blogger, with personal blogs on Quora and Medium, and contributing posts for EF Paris and Polyphony H.S.
Politics:
-Member of school’s Student Advisory Council for senior year
-Senior Fellow on Brian Ashe’s Reelection Campaign for State Representative (also this year)
Travel, community service, and language:
-Participant in two-week Paris homestay with company EF this past summer
-Participant in Yellowstone Adventure and Service, in which I did over 50 hours of community service out west
Math:
-Member of school Math Team for two years (including this year)
-Scored in top 22% (not very impressive, I know)
Work:
-Lifeguard at Six Flags this past summer
-Snowboarding Instructor at local ski area a few winters back
Science:
-Proteomics intern at Smith College for two weeks three summers ago
Community Service:
-NHS for two years, plus everything I mentioned above that fits this category

Academic Honors:
-National Merit Semifinalist
-Gold Medal on National French Exam sophomore year
-Silver Medal on National French Exam junior year
-English Class Award for Excellence (aka highest grade in my individual English class) freshman and sophomore years

My essay will most likely come across as pretty strong (at least 8/10), because I consider myself a solid writer even among other accomplished students. I haven’t asked for recommendations quite yet, but I assume those will be perfectly adequate as well.

So judging by that brief resume, do you think I stand a chance in the Yale SCEA round? Or would Dartmouth and UChicago be my best bets?

Thanks for any and all input,

Cheers.

2

go for it

3

If you got into Yale, would you always regret not knowing if you could have gotten into Dartmouth or UChicago? If you got into Dartmouth or UChicago, would you always regret not knowing if you could have gotten into Yale?

On a pure percentage basis you’d probably gain the most by doing the Dartmouth/UChicago apps. I’ve seen compelling arguments that when you factor out legacy and athlete preference, SCEA at Yale doesn’t give you any more advantage than RD. However your future feelings are important, too. It’s a tough call. Good luck.

4

That’s not a brief resume. I’m sure your chances are pretty good at any of those.

5

Competitive for all 3. If Dartmouth is your number 1 choice (or at the very least you would have no regrets not being able to try elsewhere if you got in) and FA is not an issue, ED there because you’ll get the greatest admissions boost among your 2 courses of action. But is sounds like Yale is your top choice, so I would go with the SCEA route there.

6

I agree with ninakatarina, in my experience the inflated acceptance rates of EA applicants, relative to RD applicants, at the Ivies is mostly attributable to recruited athletes and impact legacies. If you subtract out the recruited athletes alone at Yale, EA is only about 1% higher than RD (legacies are harder to count, because only impact legacies get in strictly on being a legacy – most legacies get in on their own merits with “legacy” being increasingly devalued as a true “hook”).

I believe that you look like a strong candidate for EA or RD at the three schools you have listed (of course, so will ~10,000 other applicants – it’s always a crap shoot at this level of selectivity). It will be your essays, showing your passion for becoming an involved member of the student body at each individual campus, that truly sets you apart from the field of other applicants with similar stats and ECs.

As a former MIT admissions dean once quipped (hopefully, this was hyperbole!): approximately one percent of our applicants each year are rejected because they spelled MIT wrong in their essay: M-I-T is not spelled H-A-R-V-A-R-D!

7

Adding on to my previous post (certainly not meant as an attack on the OP): what is your unweighted GPA? Also, what part of the country are you from? How many APs are offered at your HS? What are the socio-economics of your community?

Once you have achieved a “certain academic level,” the admissions folks have to compare you to the others at this level. Sex, race, and socio-economics don’t step in quite yet; but, how much advantage you took of the programs offered at your HS and how you fared versus others in a similar (or identical) HS does. They want to see that you took, and excelled in, the most academically rigorous program of study available to you. Did you opt for the non-AP version of a course when the AP version was available? If so, why? Did you take approximately the same number of AP classes as everyone else from your school applying to Yale (this year, or in past years)? If you opted for an easier academic load than your peers, maybe the challenge of an Ivy is not your best fit, perhaps your state’s flagship honors college is a better fit? (Me pretending to think like an admissions committee member there. Remember, about 10k applicants are “qualified,” but only about one in five “qualified applicants” can be offered admission.)

Geography: simply put: an applicant from Alaska (or Guam) with your stats has a much higher chance of being accepted than an “identical” applicant from the Northeast or California. These schools are “worldwide leaders in education,” it wouldn’t be advisable for them to accept everyone with perfect stats from Northeastern prep schools. They are trying to build a diverse class of future leaders. Plus, even the 4.0 UW/1600/17 AP 5s kids who want to major in CS really don’t want to spend four years surrounded by no one except clones of themselves.

Your main goal, with every college application, EA or RD, is to convince each school that YOU are the student that will make the class of '19 better, more whole, more representative of the “face” they want to show to the world. A difference maker. A team player (but, also a leader).

I hope this is helpful. Best of luck!

8

Unfortunately, a perfectly adequate recommendation will most likely put you on the waitlist at Yale, Dartmouth and UChicago. You need LoR’s that will back-up, document and reinforce what you write about in your essays and say about yourself in your EC list. You need LoR’s that rave about your intellectual curiosity and love of learning, how you are a responsible mature adult who has a keen senes of humor and would be a good roommate. Many students don’t seem to understand that after your GPA and test scores, your teacher recommendations are the next MOST IMPORTANT part of your application. Don’t believe me? Watch Jefrey Brenzel, Yale’s retired Admissions Director: https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/get-in/testing/the-real-role-of-tests-in-your-college-application

I would ask your teachers ASAP, as a great LoR takes time to craft and asking teachers close to the deadline will not give you the kind of LoR that colleges want and need! I would also recommend that you share your essays with your teachers so that they know what you are writing about, as they can document and reinforce what you say about yourself or add another perspective to what you have already written. Ask them out to coffee so they can get to know you outside of the classroom. It’s THAT important! Something else to read from MIT, but it applies to all selective colleges: http://mitadmissions.org/apply/prepare/writingrecs.

Best of luck to you!

9 
       Okay, perhaps I was a tad careless in saying that they would be "perfectly adequate." Right now, I'm trying to decide what combination between my APUSH, AP English, and AP Physics teachers from junior year I'm going to ask for a rec, but I'm pretty sure any of them would write recs that strongly highlight my best qualities as a student and person. 
 My English teacher probably "loved" me the most; I was the student on whom she almost doted, both in my class, and, apparently, to others, so I'm fairly certain she would gush about my writing abilities and intellectual insights. My history teacher and physics teacher, however, were probably the ones I was personally closer to. I had my history teacher for both freshman and junior year, was one of three students to get an A+ in his APUSH class (the other two are the top two students in my grade), and I have a pretty casual relationship with him in which I feel free to display my humor. My physics teacher is someone I ended up spending a considerable amount of time with outside of class just working on labs or filming test corrections in his room, and I also asked him to be the advisor for the Secular Club I'm planning to start at my school (which I thought of too late in last year for it to happen as a junior). 
     So I think I did myself a disservice in saying my recommendations be "perfectly adequate"; I mean, I'm sure there will be some Yale applicants who have stunning letters from senators, IMO coaches, or world-renowned researchers with whom they've worked, but there will also be applicants who, though similar to me on paper, barely connected with their teachers at all, and will truly receive recs that do no more than meet the mark. 
  Does that help you out? Sorry for not clarifying—I didn't want to cram all this in my original post.
10

I second @gibby. LoRs are often overlooked by “top students” as some type of “icing on the cake” type of thing. This is simply not true: strong LoRs are definitely important. Secure your letters before anyone else asks for them! Remember, teachers are overworked and underpaid. They aren’t going to write you a glowing LoR if they have been asked to write 100 such letters and you only gave them a week to write yours. Definitely, share your personal essays with your recommenders. Offer to sit down with them, in an informal interview type session, if you feel that they don’t really know you other than as “that kid who aced my class.” And, as with your alumni interviewer(s), be sure to follow-up with a brief thank you note!

Again: your goal is to show the schools you are applying to how YOU will make their student body more complete than it would be without YOU. The schools are accepting individuals to make up a class. Nice people win. If no one likes you, you aren’t getting in, regardless of your scores. Your LoRs show whether or not a few adults like you. Hopefully, the rest of your application shows that you are a genuinely likeable person (who has demonstrated the academic ability to survive/thrive).

11

I’m not actually positive what my unweighted GPA is—my school Naviance account still hasn’t updated since the third quarter of last year (maybe even since the second), so I can only recall my weighted one off the top of my head. However, I think it’s around a 4.1, which is possible because our school uses a scale whereby all A+s would be weighted as a 4.3. I’m from Western Massachusetts, which, though not quite as much of an academic hotspot as Eastern Mass, still doesn’t elevate me very much in that regard. Also, since I live in a rather affluent suburb with decently competitive academics, I would say I have neither socioeconomics nor geography on my side. C’est la vie, ça.
I can say with confidence that I took advantage of the most rigorous courses offered at my high school. Although I began in freshman year by taking three honors classes, I bumped it up in sophomore to five (including wind ensemble), and in junior year I went all-in and took three APs and two honors, namely English Lang&Comp, Physics I, APUSH, French IV Honors, and Wind Ensemble. This year I’m certainly not slacking off, as I’m enrolled in AP Lit, BC Calc, AP Macroeconomics, AP French, and AP Euro, as well as wind ensemble again.
As far as contributing to a community that is diverse both in immutable or uncontrollable characteristics—i.e., race/ethnicity, socioeconomic standing, geographic location, etc.—but also intellectually and in terms of interests, I think I would be a great fit. My friends are, while also smart, hard-working, intellectually curious, and high-achieving, are not exactly like me, and I think the fact that I was willing to do a homestay abroad with students from all over the world (which I loved) proves that I’m not looking for homogeneity or the comfort of similarity.
Actually, thank you for asking this question, because it made me think of how I need to emphasize both my friend group and my homestay experience on my application. Sometimes the best inspiration is unexpected!

12

I don’t need to see your UW GPA… I just wanted you to consider it… Schools want applicants who excelled in a challenging academic environment. You can internally address those issues, without bleeding your soul all over CC.

Your written communication skills are very impressive for a teenager, so I’m sure your essays will be excellent.

Use: “I’m not looking for homogeneity or the comfort of similarity” in some way in your essays. I believe you. The admissions committees will as well.

13

FWIW: At my son and daughter’s high school, students had to secure their recommendations BEFORE junior year was over, as teachers used their summer break to write LoR’s, as it gave them time to craft a letter that was thoughtful, individual and unique. If a student asked a teacher in September or October they just didn’t have the time to write anything but a generic LoR. I sincerely hope your teachers do not have the same time constraints on them, as it’s a bit “late in the game” to be deciding on which teachers to ask for LoR’s if you plan to apply early to any college. Get your act together and ask your teachers this week! It sounds like your English and Physics teacher would be the way to go.

14

@gibby At many schools, it is normal to start asking for recommendations in the fall of senior year.

Though for EA or ED, the time is now to ask.