What are my chances of getting into Yale

Colleges and Universities A-Z Yale University
1

Hello, I was wondering what my chances are of getting into Yale. I am applying as a history major.

Extracurriculars:
Mock Trial Captain: 10-12 Grade. 5th in the district
Model United Nations Founder and President: 11-12
Law Club President: 10-12
Youth Crime Watch President: 10-12
Debate Club President: 10-12
Ted ED Secretary: 11-12
NHS Secretary: 11-12
BrainBowl: 2nd place in state competition about African American history
Teen Court: 11-12. I volunteer in my city council to represent first-offender students in a jury of their peers
Yale Young Global Scholars Program this summer
Summer Program at Washington D.C. for Hispanic students interested in Politics

Stats
1410 SAT (760 r/w, 650 m)
5.0 Weighted gpa, 3.96 UW.

Classes
Sophomore Year:
AP Psychology (4)
AP Seminar (4)
AP Human Geography (4)
AP Macroeconomics (3)
Senior Year:
AP United States History
AP Art History
AP Environmental Science
AP Spanish Language
AP English Language
AP Research
AP Microeconomics
Any advice is appreciated, thank you and have a nice day :slight_smile:

2

Selective colleges use test scores to judge whether a student could handle the reading and writing work load on their campus. The HIGHER your ACT/SAT score, the less likely an Admissions Officer will question “If I admit this kid, will they struggle on my campus?”

Your SAT math score is far below Yale’s 25th percentile score of 730. Truthfully, it’s not even in the ballpark. meaning that an Admissions Officer is going to question if you could handle the math work load on their campus. AO’s don’t want to set a student up for failure, so IMHO If you apply SCEA with your current test scores, you should expect to be deferred. If you apply RD with your current test scores, you should expect a rejection (sorry).

You should retake the SAT or try the ACT and apply with test scores safely in Yale’s middle 50%: https://admissions.yale.edu/standardized-testing

3

Yale attracts some incredibly talented and qualified applicants.

Yet their acceptance rate is still less than 7%-- of those incredibly talented and qualified applicants.

If you’re well below the 25th percentile, then you can figure your odds are well below 7%.

The good news is that there are something like 3,000 colleges in this country. Every one is some kid’s dream school.

I think that, if you want to apply to Yale, do so. But know it’s an incredible long shot.Find and fall in love with some other schools that are likely to have better results

4

You took 4 APs in Grade 10, and are planning to take 7 in Grade12, but none in Grade 11?

Also, college apps take a lot of time. I assume that somebody signed off on your schedule (and I know course work load can vary a lot by school), but you have 7 APs, including 2 content-heavy that are particularly content-heavy (USHx & Art Hx) looks like a lot…

Finally, no math for Grade 12?

5

With a 650 SAT in math, I imagine math is a challenge for you, however you should pay attention to what colleges look for when reviewing a student’s transcript. For example, https://admissions.yale.edu/advice-selecting-high-school-courses

IMHO, when a college says, “you should try to take”, it means the majority of students applying to the college WILL HAVE taken . . . so applying to a college without some kind of math course senior year will put your application at a disadvantage and highlight the challenges you face in math. That’s true for Yale and every selective college.

6

Can you list your classes for each year, indicating honors/AP when relevant, following this format (ER subject, chronological order)
English
Math
Social science
Science
Foreign Language
HS requirement
Personal picks

Is your school underperforming? What’s the average act/SAT there?
Are you scheduled to retake the test? What about subject tests?

7

Hi, when I was writing the list I was using my phone and I did not notice that I put Senior Year instead of Junior Year. Those are the classes that I took this year, which I ended up with straight As in them.

I’m planning on taking 5 AP classes next year:
AP English Literature
AP Spanish Literature
AP European History
AP Statistics
AP U.S. Government

I took Pre-Calculus this year because it was a requirement.

8

These are the classes I took my freshman year: Biology 1 Honors, Geometry Honors, English 1 Honors, Business, World History Honors, Technical Theater(for my arts credit), Communications Methodologies (A prerequisite for AP Capstone), and P.E. Through dual enrollment I took Humanities and Sociology in the Spring semester and Journalism and Speech during the Summer semester. Online I took Spanish, French, and two essay regular classes. I received straight As.

Sophomore year: AP Psychology, Chemistry Honors, Algebra 2 Honors, English 2 Honors, AP Human Geography, AP Capstone, Law 1, Culinary, AP Macroeconomics.

Junior Year: AP English Lang, AP Research, AP U.S. History 1, AP Art History 1, AP Spanish Language, AP Environmental Science, AP Micro, and Pre-Cal.

Senior Year: AP English Lit, AP Spanish Literature, AP European History, AP Statistics, AP U.S. Government, Law 2 Honors, Law 3 Honors, and World Religions Honors

And yes, my school is underperforming. We are mostly low-income Hispanic students. The average SAT is 1020. No one that I know, including students from past years that have been accepted into an Ivy League, has scored higher than 1400.

I am planning on retaking the test in June, as well as the subject tests.

9

You could say you have a 4.0, 1600 SAT and 800s on all your subject tests and no one here could tell you what your chances are of getting into Yale. Don’t play this game, trust me. Work hard, hope for the best and have some realistic safeties.

10

Here is the thing about your profile, you look like you want to be a lawyer. I think you have a shot at getting into Yale with a hook despite your lower then average score in math. I’ll make the assumption that you want to attend Yale law school and I’m pretty sure there isn’t a lot of math on the LSAT. Still since they do superscore the SAT, I’d concentrate on the math section of the SAT one more time.

11

The information above changes things.
You need to work very hard on your brag sheet (look up “college brag sheet guidance counselor”) so that your GC knows to state how unusual your courseload is and that no one had ever scored above 1400 before you in the school’s history/past 10 or 20 years.
So, your chances go from almost nil to possible. Still it only means 1 in 20.
Do you know Questbridge? Are you eligible? If Questbridge accepts you, apply to Yale through CollegeMatch. Beside Yale, rank Vassar which is close in “personality” to Yale.
https://www.questbridge.org/high-school-students/national-college-match

What’s your EFC?
What state do you live in?
Before thinking about Yale, you need to think about safeties, matches, and regular reaches.

12

Is there a math course you could take senior year (while AP Statistics uses math, it not a substitute for AP Calc AB or BC)? If so, I would add Calc and drop AP Statistics. FWIW: Every ivy league school, except Brown, has distributional requirements or general education requirements that include math. At Yale, those math distributional requirements fall into the Quantitative Reasoning category: http://catalog.yale.edu/ycps/yale-college/distributional-requirements/

13

OP is clearly not a stem student and took precalculus, not precalcH, so AP Calc is likely out of the question and its quite possible the high school doesn’t offer “non AP” calculus. “Literary” students can take Stats 109 (intro to stats) or 106 (stats for political science, stats for social sciences - there are different sections) as well as Logic formal reasoning courses. Calculus is not necessary.
For a non-Stem student, it’s more important to have a lot of Humanities/Social science classes with A’s than
However, @eric2002, you should have a science senior year, probably replacing Law Honors2 or 3, and if you can dual enrolla a CC somewhere, add an Intro to Philosophy class.

14

^^ I missed that. OP also needs to take a science course senior year. As s/he already has taken Bio and Chem, the logical choice would be Physics – or AP Bio/AP Chem. FWIW: Although the OP may prefer the Law 2 Honors and Law 3 Honors courses, selective undergraduate colleges don’t really consider those core high school courses. Yale, and the rest of the ivy league schools, want transcripts that have science and math every year – that’s true for all students (even those wanting to major in humanities).

15

Yes - one each of the five core classes plus classes that reflect what the student purports to be interested in.
@Eric2002
Does your school offer honors Physics or regular physics or even AP physics 1?

16

FWIW: I realize this thread is on the Yale forum, but Harvard is a bit more straightforward about what courses they recommend high school students take. IMHO, Yale expects the same: https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/preparing-college/choosing-courses

17

My advice to you would be create a core list of colleges if you haven’t done so already. Bates, Bowdoin, Hamilton, Trinity, Williams, Holy Cross and Kenyon, for example, would all be superb (as would Yale) for the study of history. Even if you were to trim the ultra-selectives from this group (and you’ll note several as you proceed in your research), you could still find yourself with two or more high-quality acceptances if you were to craft well-considered applications.

18

I could add AP Biology to my courses next year.

My school does not offer AP Physics, so would it be better to take Physics Honors or AP Biology?

19

Thanks for the advice. I have a list of schools that I am also applying to that are not as competitive as Yale.

I just wanted to see what my chances were to get into this particular school, as it is my dream school, and see if there was anything I could do to improve my chances of being accepted.

20

I would say Physics honors sice you’ve not taken physics yet.