What are my chances for Yale?

[gibby]

What difference does it make that I haven’t been through the college process? It doesn’t take very much intelligence to see that this scenario presents a very very slim chance of acceptance.

I disagree. An 18/593 class rank places the OP within the top 3% of their graduating class – something very impressive for a student who is a first generation american student who is bilingual (English and Russian). While Yale (and HPSM) could fill they classes with valedictorians and salutatorians – they do not. Instead, Admissions selectively cherry-picks students based upon teacher recommendations, guidance counselor’s SSR, essays and interview reports. Six years ago, for example, at my son’s high school Yale passed over the valedictorian and salutatorian and instead took students with lesser rankings, including my son who was also ranked about 18th in his graduating class. FWIW: According to Yale’s Common Data Set, 94% of admitted Yale students were in the top 10% of their graduating class – so the OP fits very nicely in that category. So, your earlier comment in post 20 of this thread is dead-wrong and disingenuous. See: https://oir.yale.edu/sites/default/files/cds2016-2017.pdf.

Yes, the OP’s ACT/SAT scores are low for Yale – which is what I stated. However, the low scores are because of his/her reading and writing, which might be due to the the OP’s first language being Russian – and Admissions takes those things into account when examining a student’s file. As Jeffrey Brenzel, Yale’s retired Dean of Admissions stated on the College Board website: https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/get-started/video-transcription/whats-the-most-important-part-of-the-application

Students, when we’re on the road, we often play a little kind of quiz show game with students, asking what they think is the most important part of the application. Many, many students respond, “Well, the testing must be the most important.” It’s actually one of the less important elements in the file. The testing can give you a sense of what schools are within your range, and it gives the school a sense of what students in the applicant pool are within their range. The most important part of your application — bar none, no question, any college — is your high school transcript. Probably the next most important are your teacher recommendations, particularly if you’re applying to any kind of selective college or university.