2300 on SAT
Did a year long study abroad in france junior year, speak fluent french
Was in math club for 2 years
3.6 unweighted GPA
President and creator of high school club called Advocates for Difference all of senior year. really successful so far
Did 6 high school plays and won a few competitions
Volunteered at hospital for one summer
Please be honest. Do I have any chance of getting in at all?
SAT score is enough to give you a chance. Speaking fluent french helps some. That GPA could be a killer, though. You’d need to offset it by being exceptional (top 0.1%) in the rest of your portfolio. Although the high school plays will help, there’s just not much else, and creating a club only in your senior year won’t count for much unless the club has received national attention.
You have a chance, but it’s a very slim one. I’m not prepared to say your odds aren’t worth the application fee, but they certainly aren’t great.
Thanks a ton. Im taking AP classes right now and my weighted gpa is 4.0. I taught myself precalc over the summer and tested out of it and went straight to calc (i missed a year of math during my study abroad) does that help me at all?
Correcting a year of missed study isn’t so much helping you as avoiding a weakness. Most top students will take calculus as juniors, if not earlier.
Your weighted GPA is good, but a lot of applicants to Yale (and most of the students who end up being accepted) will have an unweighted 4.0 GPA.
Your odds, again, are not good.
You definitely need to have at least one backup college, because you can’t count on getting into Yale.
Ok thanks a bunch for your answers. I kinda already thought all that initially. But just one more question while were at it…does studying abroad in high school help with college admissions or not? you miss a year of study but you learn another culture and language…does putting my study abroad on a college application help or hurt my chances?
Nowadays, colleges have about a million candidates who are qualified and have a zillion extracurriculars. They need to weed through the lot, and one way they try to do that is by looking for candidates who are “interesting.” This means anything that separates you from the crowd (I’m tempted to use the word mob here) is good. Studying abroad will make you interesting. I’d definitely put it on your app, as it can’t hurt.
ok thank you SO much! you’re awesome!!