<p>Today, upon getting back to my dorm, a tremendously cold gust of wind burst into my door. It hit me right in the face. Unfortunately, three of my eyelashes were jarred loose and floated lazily onto the surface of my desk. To my surprise, they fell in the shape of a “Y”! </p>
<p>Does this mean anything?! Is the Yale admissions office sending a message?? I mean, I don’t want to overanalyze the situation, but it seems a bit odd. Why would they even do such a thing this late in the process??</p>
<p>yeah @WWWard, if you don’t mind, what kind of question did they ask? because considering decisions come out next week, if it really were a trivial question, it probably would have no make or break effect on your daughter’s application, which means the admissions office probably wouldn’t take the extra effort to personally call you…</p>
<p>In all honesty, my friend had something similar happen today. Apparently, he was missing a financial aid document and Yale called him on his cell to ask about it. That’s probably a good sign. It almost makes me wish that I had purposely left a FA document out hahah.</p>
<p>They were simply made aware of an award notification very late in the process (long after the Common Application submission), asked a clarifying question and then confirmed that the info alone would suffice at this stage and that they do not need the organization to send them independent supporting materials. We are not trying to read anything into it, but if we were to… it seems to be more indicative of the deferral we expect. The only surprising thing was the call itself during this very busy week for them. My point was to suggest that maybe some decisions remain pending even this week. We are still expecting a Deferral though.</p>
<p>I have not heard from Yale other than the interview. I sent additional info about an award I received after the app was due, and all I heard back was that they received my info, put it with my application, and that “I’m all set.” I’m expecting a deferral but I guess we’ll find out in 6 days.</p>
<p>You should be ecstatic. Many qualified applicants (and sometimes very, very qualified applicants) get flat out rejected early. 28% is a rather large number. I doubt they would call right before decisions are finalized to ask about the info of a rejected person. Unless they change something last second, consider yourself (or your S or D if you’re a parent) accepted or deferred. You probably have better odds than the rest of us now lol.</p>
<p>Probably a better sign is what MikeNY5 referenced, a friend being contacted by Financial Aid about a missing document. That would seem to imply that they need it for a pending decision. </p>
<p>There are past threads here on CC that reference applicants with superlative stats and credentials who were deferred and even outright rejected. In many of those cases, I would have projected pre-decision that such candidates would likely be accepted. It just goes to show though that in an environment where 93+ percent of all applicants (EA/RD) will ultimately not be accepted, it is extremely hard to gain admission and no one should simply count on anything. 1000s of well-qualified applicants will not be matched with Yale this year and that will be unfortunate… but it is simply a by-product of the raw #s. My D is prepared for the more likely result. If she beats the odds, she will clearly be ecstatic, as all those accepted should be.</p>
<p>gryphonite: Not to us directly. If so… they may have requested such from the HS - or the HS may have supplied such independently. If they were unblemished, I do not see any harm in letting Yale know such via the HS GC, if they routinely update colleges in that manner.</p>
<p>Just joined and am very impressed with the quality of aspiring Yalies on this thread. The harsh reality that everyone needs to come to grips with, however, is that with an admit rate under 7%, admissions necessarily becomes a negative process: adcoms are looking for reasons to deny rather positive reasons to admit. That’s the only way to deal with such numbers. Furthermore, as noted by published commentators, many of the application readers aren’t exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer - few of them could actually get in themselves. As a result, it’s easier for them to find things they don’t like about applicants than to appreciate the finer nuances of an elegantly crafted essay, which most of them couldn’t write themselves anyways. The human capital constraints of admissions (underpaid admissions staffs, part-time readers, etc.) make the process structurally flawed from the outset; the final decisions may or may not reflect the intrinsic merits of the applicant pool evaluated. Bottom line: whatever decision you get, take it with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>BChanakya: My daughter is not applying to Harvard.</p>
<p>As a parent, and as someone himself ultimately rejected by Harvard and Yale, here is an interesting list to consider before December 16th. </p>
<p>Clearly, Yale will not be admitting most of this year’s applicants, but before you despair should that be your own individual outcome… consider these past rejections: </p>
<p>Tom Brokaw – rejected by Harvard, Scott McNealy (Sun Microsystems co-founder) – rejected by Stanford and Harvard, Steven Spielberg – rejected by the USC Film School (3 times), John Kerry – rejected by Harvard, Meredith Vieira – rejected by Harvard, Ted Turner – rejected by Princeton and Harvard, Warren Buffett – rejected by Harvard Business School, Katie Couric – rejected by Smith College, John Schlifske (President of Northwestern Mutual) – rejected by Yale, Jann Wenner (founder of Rolling Stone Magazine) – rejected by Harvard, Harold Varmus (Noble Prize in Medicine) – rejected by Harvard, Paul Purcell (Robert W. Baird & Co. ) – rejected by Stanford, Art Garfunkel – rejected by Harvard, Lee Bollinger (Columbia University President) – rejected by Harvard</p>
<p>Yes. Ted Turner is on an interesting list… 32 billionaires who either dropped-out of or were kicked out of college. Others of course include Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Dell, David Geffen, Ralph Lauren & Gabe Newell.</p>
<p>Princeton is an excellent option in my opinion, especially for its undergrad-centric reputation. Along with Princeton, my D has also applied to Brown, Columbia, Penn, Duke, Dartmouth, Northwestern, UChicago, Stanford and USC (and 3 safeties). But despite the numerous options (albeit most highly selective still), the main issue that I have is the lengthy delay for applicants between the Early Action and RD announcements for those deferred or rejected. Late March / Early April is so far away… Ugh.</p>
<p>Here’s a simple distraction question for you… best film with a college theme or featuring college prominently?</p>
<p>The two that come to mind quickly for me are The Social Network and Animal House. Other possibles include Legally Blonde, Love Story, Rudy…</p>
<p>Saw The Social Network again recently and of course recognized Hopkins serving as Harvard for many exterior campus scenes. Apparently, Harvard did not allow them to film there. Ironically, despite the raw/rude humor, the U of Oregon allowed Animal House to be filmed there…</p>
<p>I’ve been spending my morning reading through this thread to distract myself from worrying while waiting-argh!
It was informative. I had not heard of the Common Data Set. It was interesting to look up Yale’s and see the facts, what is really important to them and what is not.
We toured Yale this past summer. This was an effort , as we are from Washington State (2 flights.) We took the train into NYC after and spent a few days having fun. I wanted her to see how close NY is to New Haven. She is not sure she likes New Haven but does like Yale. Does anyone have any experience or know what it is like for the kids? Do many travel into NY for the weekends, for a little fun?
I am sure she’ll be deferred if not outright rejected.</p>
<p>I meant what is the town like for the kids?
Also, I would like to know if anyone knows about how the transcript is considered. Many people have told me that highly selective school and Ivies do not just look at the gpa listed but will recalculate a student’s gpa based on core academic classes only-no electives like pe, art or non-academic electives are included. Then they may give extra points for AP classes. Does anyone know if that is true?</p>